73 
.65 

£737 




Class.__Elir3- 
Book JclS- 



.0^73 7 






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THE 



PUBLIC EIGHTS 



r 



BOSTON COMMOK 



BEING THE 

KEPORT OF A" COMMITTEE OF CITIZENS. 





opm^w"^^;^'^' 



BOSTON: 

PRESS OF ROCKWELL AND CHURCHILL, 

No, 39 ARCH STREET. 
1877. 



M3 
,4.5 

,C7B7 



REPORT 



The attempts to turn Boston Common to semi-private 
uses, or to encroach upon its boundaries, have been so per- 
sistent, that it has seemed best to give a history thereof for 
the past eight years. 

We begin, therefore, with the attempt to phice upon the 
Parade-Ground, in 1869, the building for the great Musical 
Festival of that year. 

As will be seen by the record, permission was granted 
to erect a building there. The popular feeling was so 
strong, however, that the managers of that enterprise deemed 
it injudicious to accept the grant, and the building was 
placed upon land farther south and west. It is a fact, also, 
that at the time a committee of citizens had decided to 
appeal to the Supreme Judicial Court, if any attempt to 
build was made, and that eminent counsel were of opinion 
that the City Council had exceeded its legal powers in 
making the grant. 

The official report of the proceedings is as follows : — 

•'BoardofAldekmen, March 15th, 1869. — A petition was presented 
from Geo. H. Davis and others, for a change of the location of the 
structure designed fur the celebration of the Grand National Peace 
Festival. Voted to hear the petitioners at once. 

" A motion was made to refer the matter to the Committee on the 
Common, but was not pressed. 

" Alderman [Geo. P.] Baldwin said he should readily vote in flrvor 
of the location of the building on the Common, and trusted it would be 
carried out on the magnificent scale which its character warrants. He 
did not fear any precedent of this noble nature ; and the nature of this 
enterprise would prevent it from becoming a precedent for most under- 
takings hereafter." 

" The order was passed without a count. 



IV 



"In Boakd of Aldeumex, IMai-ch 22, 1869. — Remonstrances were 
presented from William Gray, Gardner Brewer & Co., and G.JO others. 
A hearing was at ence given, and tlie remonstrants who sjookc; were 
George B. Emerson, Dr. S. K. Lothrop, Dr. Jacob Bigelow, Henry B. 
Rogers, J. T. Prince, G. Bradford, and C. H. Dalton. 

" Alderman Bradlee moved that the order granting the Common be 
rescinded. Alderman George P. Baldwin opposed this action, and 
said ' This was not like an exhibition of a menagerie, or other exhi- 
bition for pecuniary gain, and it never could be claimed as a precedent 
for such purposes.' Alderman Richards favored rescinding, and Alder- 
man Pratt opi^osed it. 

*'The motion to rescind was rejected without a count." 



1872. TEMPORARY STORES ON THE COMMON. 

The next attempt to encroach upon the Common was more 
justifiable, as being the act of the City Government at a 
time of great public excitement and distress. Immediately 
after the great fire of 1872, and when the painful eflfects of 
that calamity were naturally fresh in the minds of the people, 
it was proposed to allow persons who had lost their stores to 
build temporarily on the Common. But although the plan 
Avas adopted, no one availed of the permission, it being 
found to be impracticable and unnecessary. 

The official report of the proceedings is as folh)WS : — 

" Nov. 11, 1872. A motion was made in the Common Council, at a 
special morning session, b}- Mr. W. F. Robinson, of Ward 11, to allow 
sheds on the Common for persons burnt out. This motion went at once 
to the Boai'd of Aldermen, then in session, and was discussed. Mr. 
Healy, City Solicitor, was present, and, on the question of the legality 
of such action, said, ' The terms of the order showed a somewhat 
indefinite use of the Common. If the design were to erect buildings 
on the Common, such a i^urpose is prohibited. Section 39 of the City 
Charter prohibits the selling or leasing of the Common or Faneuil 
Hall, and this clearly comes within this prohibition.' Referred to the 
Committee on Common, etc." 

At the afternoon session the same day, Alderman John T. 
Clark reported back the order from the connnittee, in a new 
draft, providing that the buildings should be removed by 
June 1st, and advocated its passage. 



Passed, ton to two ; the dissentients being INIessrs. Cutter 
and Power. 

ENCROACHMENTS UPON THE TERRITORY OF THE COMMON. 

The third attack upon the Common was in the direction 
of a widening of Tremont street, in 1873. 

The scheme which was strongly urged was to remove 
the sidewalk and fence on Tremont street, and to widen 
Tremont street to accommodate more horse-railroad tracks. 

The official report is as follows : — 

"Board of Aldermen, June 23, 1873. 
" Alderman John T. Clark, from the Committee on Streets, reported 
in favor of removing the sidewalk on the Common side of Tremont street. 
June 30th, a debate took place, when Alderman S. M. Quincj- opposed 
the order, and Aldermen Clark, Gibson and Emery favored it, and it 
was passed." 

By the proceedings of July 28th it seems that the fence 
had then been taken down, and finally (Sept. 8th) it w\as 
sent to Mount Hope Cemetery. 

In 1874 nothing seems to have been done, though, under 
date of July 27, an attempt was made to set edgestones on 
the line of the old fence. Under date of October 1st it 
appears that the Street Commissioners were considering 
the question of widening Tremont street by taking part of 
the Common. 

In 1875 there were two reports made in regard to the 
fence on Tremont street. The majority, headed by Alder- 
man Clark, favored a curb only ; the minority, Alderman 
Quincy and others, desired an iron fence, on the plan finally 
adopted. 

By the reported debates it seems that the Common Coun- 
cil voted 44 to 21 to accept the minority report; and that 
the Aldermen so voted, 8 to 3, Messrs. Clark, Power and 
Worthington favoring a curb only. 



VI 



ACT OF APRIL 29tii, 1875. 

An net Avas obtained from the Legislature, Chapter 163 of 
Acts of 1875, providing that " no highway, town- way, street, 
turnpike, canal, railroad or street railway, shall he laid out 
or constructed in, upon, throuiih or over any public common 
or public park which has been dedicated to the use of the 
public or appropriated to such use without interruption for 
the period of twenty years or longer ; nor shall any part of 
any such public common or pul)lic park be taken for widen- 
ing or altering an}^ highway, town-way or street, previously 
located or constructed . . . without the consent of the 
inhabitants of the city or town in which the same is situated 
is first obtained." Such consent must be given by vote at a 
special meeting called for the purpose. 

The latest project to encroach upon the Common is the 
one which is familiar to us to-day, namely, the proposal to 
allow the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics' Association 
to erect a large building on the Parade-Ground, in which to 
hold an exhibition. 

The history of this movement is as follows : On the 
29th January, 1877, there was presented to the Board of 
Aldermen the following petition : — 

" To the Honorable City Council of Boston, — 

" The IMf.ssachusetts Charitable jNIechanics' Association, by its Boai'd 
of Government, respectfully petitions that it may be allowed to erect a 
temporary building on the parade-ground of Boston Common, next fall, 
for its triennial exposition of industry and art, under such regulations 
as the Committee on Common and Squares shall prescribe. 

" Joseph F. Paul, President.'''' 

A petition in aid of that was presented at the same time, 
as follows : — 



" To the Honorable City Council of Boston, — 

" The undersigned, citizens and business men of Boston, respectfully 
favor the application of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics' Asso- 



Vll 

elation for permission to erect a temporary huilrling on the parade- 
ground of the Boston Common, next fall, for its triennial exposition of 
industry and art, and join with the Association in asking that its petition 
be granted. 

" (Signed) Otis Norcross, John Dnflf, Geo. C. Richardson, James R. 
Osgood & Co., Oliver Ditson, Williams and Everett, R. H. White & Co., 
C. A. Richards, Martin P. Kennard, Hallett, Davis & Co., Hallett & 
Cumston, John H. Pray, Sons & Co., J. W. Brackett, Henry F. Miller, 
Chas. H. Bacon, President Rogers Upright Piano Co., Geo. Woods &Co., 
Woodward & Brown, Chas. W. Spurr, J. A. Whitmore, Geo. T. Blake 
Mfg. Co., W. A. Redfield, Palmer, Parker & Co., James F. Paul & Son, 
H. W. Kimball, R. G. F. Candage, C. G. Atwood, Geo. O. Carpenter, 
Eben Howes, J. Waldo Denny, H. R. Sibley, M. S. Bolles, Thos. E. 
Procter, J. P. Grinnell & Co., Cole, Wood & Co., F. Jones & Co., Day, 
Wilcox & Co., Jno. B. Alley & Co., Allen, Field & Lawrence, Henry 
Washburn & Co., Fogg, Houghton & Coolidge, Potter, White & Bailey, 
Jenkins, Lane »& Sons, James Tucker & Co." 

There is also a petition in aid, in the same words, signed by 

" Charles G. Greene, J. Warren Faxon, J. F. ]\Iorrill, F. W. Bird, Henry 
H. Barrows, Lyman Boynton, J. J. Richards, D. Sturtivant, John 
French, Anthony Hanson, Wm. Gaston, Edwin Pope, W. B. Munroe, 

B. D. Whitcomb, W. P. Emerson Piano Co., W. Moore, Chas. E. 
Jenkins, E. S. Tobey, D. N. Skillings, John W. Candler, Albert Bowker, 
Richard Briggs, Roberts Bros., Joseph F. Travers, W. Hovey, Frank 
Hill Smith, Erastus B. Bigelow." 

Also another petition in aid, signed by 

" Leopold Morse, Geo. P. Baldwin, Jno. Cummings, Jerome Jones, 
Asa Potter, Ivers W. Adams, Isaac Fenno & Co., Beard, Moulton & 
Blue, Wm. Claffin, Edwin H. Sampson, E. P. Wilbur, R. Worthington, 

C. M. Clapp & Co., Clapp & Balderstone, Henry C. Hunt & Co., Den- 
nison & Co., William Morse, Herman Askenasy, Chas. Whitney, Albert 
A. Cobb, Geo. C. Barrett, Gilbert Atwood, H. M. Bearce, Sam'l E. 
Sawyer, L. H. Palmer, Agent Fall River Line, J. W Richardson, Agent 
Stonington & Shoi'e Line, Edwin M. Bacon, Chas. H. Taylor, Chas. A. 
Smith & Co." 

The petition was referred to the Joint Standing Committee 
on Commons and Squares, and on Feb. 1st the Common 
Council concurred in the reference. 

On the 5th February, four days after the reference, at the 



Vlll 



rcirular meetinsr of the Board of Aldermen the committee 
reported unanimously in favor of granting the petition. 

Alderman Fitzgerald presented the following remon- 
strance : — 

•• To the Board of Aldermen of the City of Boston, — 

*'The undersigned, citizens of and tax-payers in Boston, respectfully 
remonstrate against jjermission being given to any persons to erect 
buildings on the Common for other than municiiDal purposes. They also 
petition your Honorable Board to grant a public hearing on this subject 
before any decision is made. 

" (Signed) W. H. "Whitmore, John C. Ropes, Abbott Lawi'cnce, Geo. 
O. Shattuck, Geo. S. Hale, George B. Chase, A. C. Martin, C. C. Jack- 
son, Joseph Healey, Jacob Sleeper, Clement Hugh Hill, Prentice Cum- 
mings, Wm. S. Macfarlane, J. Henry Sleeper, Saml T. Morse, Josiah 
F. Guild, J. Orne Green, Ed. F.Daland, Samuel S. Shaw, C. E. Hubbard, 
AV. Minot, Jr., G. W. Baldwin, Dwight Foster, BenJ. F. Stevens, Sewell 
Tappan, Jos. M. Gibbens, John Gardner, Wm. Amory, T. Jefferson 
Coolidge, E. R. Mudge, Sawyer & Co., AVeeks & Potter, Jno. D. Bryant, 
O. W. Peabody, Preston & Merrill, Perkins & Job, lasigi & Job, lasigi 
& Co., Cutler Bros. & Co., Barney Corey, Dexter Brothers, Charles E. 
French, Horatio E. Swasey, E. Worthen James." 

The matter was referred back to the committee, with in- 
structions to give a public hearing, and this reference was 
concurred in hj the Common Council on the following Thurs- 
day, Feb. 8. 

The Committee on Commons and Squares advertised a 
hearing for Saturday afternoon, Feb. 10. 

A full report of the hearing will be found in City Docu- 
ment No. 2(). Owing to a misunderstanding with the Clerk 
of Committees, the remonstrants supposed that they w'ere 
obliged to appear hy counsel. Having engaged the services 
of Robert D. Smith, Esq., they appeared, but only with the 
intention of asking for a chance to reply to the petitioners' 
case as it might be shown. John D. Bryant, Esq., also 
appeared for certain objectors. 

The petitioners were represented l^y Joseph F. Paul and 
Charles W. Slack, the President and Secretary of the Asso- 
ciation. They called as Avitnesses, Rev. E. E. Hale, W. B. 
Spooner, Jerome Jones, M. P. Kennard, D. N. Skillings, 



IX 

John H. Lester, ex- Alderman Geo. P. Baldwin, L. New- 
comb, G. Nowell, C. R. McLean, John Galvin and William 
Gaston, all in favor of granting the petition. 

Certain extracts from the evidence are here given to show 
what was desired. 

Mr. Panl stated that the proposed building was to be 
in sections 200 feet wide, and, if 600 feet long, it would cost 
$100,000. 

He estimated that the site would be worth $40,000 to the 
Association more than any other location. That the last 
exhibition yielded a net profit of $19,100, and that the 
Association owned a building, on the corner of Bedford and 
Chauncey streets, worth $300,000, supposed to represent 
the profits of former years, were facts mentioned. 



Questions Answered by Mr. Slack 

Mr. Whitmore. — I would like to ask a question oi" two of Mr. 
Slack. 

Mr. Slack. — Anything I can answer I shall be pleased to. We 
have nothing to conceal, and I shall be glad to give the gentleman any 
information. 

Q. (By Mr. Whitmore.) — As I understand, this building is to be 
built in sections, and taken down at the expiration of the show ? 

A. That is the idea. 

Q. Is it intended to keep it and put it together again ? 

A. The idea is that we shall build this building, and have it for 
whatever purposes it may be required for exhibitions. It is to be built 
in sections ; it is contemplated that each section shall be twenty feet 
in length, and consequently we can telescope it for any certain length. 
When the exhibition is over we propose to go outside and lease a small 
piece of land, and put up one section, under which the other dismantled 
sections may remain until we need them again. Does that answer 
your question ? 

Q. Partly. Xow I ask whether, at the end of three years, you pro- 
pose to put it up again ? 

A. My dear friend, we expect to have that exhibition every three 
years. 

Q. Do you expect to put it up again on Boston Common ? You don't 
know who will be your successors. 

A. I should think very likely they will come again and ask that priv- 
ilege of the City of Boston. 

Q. That is, out of any given three years, you propose to occupy the 



Common more than one-sixth of the time, and practically take it every 
third summer ? 

A. If the centre of population should extend out to Brookline, or 
out over the ]\Iill-dam, and if a proper building could be erected in that 
vicinity, we might go there ; but to go there now we would be out of 
the way. I do not know where we shall ask to put it next time. This 
exhibition may be a dead failure. We propose to let every enterprise 
stand on its own merit, whether it is ours or anybodj^'s else. 

The hearing was finally adjourned for one week. 

On Wednesda}' of the following week a number of gentle- 
men who had signed the remonstrance, or who favored that 
action, met to consult about the best course in defence of the 
Common. The following committee w\is appointed : William 
H. Whitmore, George B. Chase, Hamilton A. Hill, Abbott 
Law^rence, and Charles H. Dal ton. They Avere empowered 
to employ counsel, to appear before the City Government, the 
Courts, or the Legislature, and to collect money to meet the 
necessary expenses. 

It was announced that an order, introduced by Col. Henry 
Lee, of Boston, had been passed, instructing the House 
Judiciary Committee to consider whether any legislation was 
necessary to prevent the misappropriation of commons and 
parks by their custodians. 

The second public hearing ^vas given by the Committee on 
Commons and Squares, on February 17th. As it is fully 
reported in Appendix A> no farther remark is necessary. 

At this hearing remonstrances wxre presented, signed as 
follows : — 



B. R. Weld, 
D. D. Crombie, 
Ezra Farnsworth, 
S. S. Snelling, 
R. D. Smith, 
John T. Cooledge, 
Tho. Mosley, 
L. W. Burlen, 



Re.monstrants. 

J. C. Warren, 
N. P. Russell, 
W. A. Gage, 
Kirk Boott, 
C. M. Rollins, 
B. Joy JefiVies, 
J. H. Reed, 
Jos. S. Fay, Jr., 



W. L. Richardson, 
F. L. Iligginson, 
L. j\I. Sargent, 
Charles A. Prince, 

E. Gray, 

C. H. Minot, 

F. Skinner, 
F. Merriam, 



XI 



Clias. G. Davis, 
Henry S. Bean, 
R. W. Hooper, 
A. H. Bean, 
Geo. L. Deblois, 

F. W. Reynolds, 
E. Billiard, Jr., 
Russell Gray, 
Jere. Abbott, 

C. E. Stevens, 
John C. Gray, Jr., 
W. B. Stevens, 
C. J. Sprague, 
Samuel Wells, 
Henry Lee, 
J. N. Denison, 
C. P. Horton, 
Addison Child, 
C. Head, 
Wm. Homer, 

G. Jones, 

C. J. Morse, 
W. E. Perkins, 
L. F. French, 
W. F. Merritt, 
E. J. Jenkins, 
J. W. Dammerall, 
C. Smith, 
C. H. Baker, 
M. J. Rowen, 
J. J. Rowen, 
C. L. Richardson, 
C. Moulton, 



C. Fairchild, 

W. S. Dexter, 

W. W. Tucker, 

J. Murdoch, 

J. A. lasigi, 

G. B. Upton, 

Hall Curtis, 

H. Mulliken, 

G. S. Dabney, 

W. C. Wharton, 

C. J. Paine, 

F. R. Sears, 

R. S. Faj, 

Lemuel Shaw, 

R. C. Winthrop, Jr., 

C. Crowninsliield, 

W. B. Swett, 

F. B. Greenough, 

C. L. Young, 

T, K. Cummins, 

James H. Blake, 

J. F. Curtis, 

E. P. Joice, 

C. H. C. Parker, 

A. T. O'Leary, 

J. H. Murphy, 

J. H. Costello, 

T. Drummond, 

C. Finn, 

T. Smith, 

J. McCarthy, 

P. Orum, 

J. Gilheny, 

W. H. Crowley. 



A. Dexter, 

M. S. Greenough, 

R. H. Stevenson, 

J. S. Coolidge, 

G. Dickinson, 

John Parkinson, 

Ja. & W. Bird & Co., 

Geo. B. Blake, 

Chas. E. Stratton, 

A. B. Hill, 

L. W. Tappan, Jr., 
G. P. King, 
R. S. Milton, 
W. V. Hutehings, 
C. J. Williams, _ 
H. B. llallett, 
H. P. Chandler, 
E. A. Abbot, 
T. A. Neal, 
T. F. Edmands, 

B. F. Dwight, 
W. F. Matchett, 
W. H. Blood, 

C. Eastman, 
T. F. Shea, 
M. J. Buckley, 
J. R. Stewart, 
E. Borlow, 
W. Corbett, 

James Sullivan & Co. 
P. J. Crowley, 
J. H. Crowley, 
J. H. Clure, 



Also, 



Jeffrey Richardson, 
O. W. Holmes, 
E. H. Clarke, 
H. I. Bowditch, 
Jas. T. Fields, 
H. J. Bigelow, 
Geo. H. Kuhn, 
R. C. Waterston, 
Lyman Nichols, 
Martin Brimmer, 



Linder & Meyer, H. A. Hill, 

N. H. Crocker, S. W. Bowdlear, 

John I. Brown & Sons, J. T. Payson, 



J. H. Felt, 
Brooks & Young, 
A. Towne, 
R. B. Storer & Co., 
S. W. Fowle & Sons, 
G. Henshaw, 
Isaac B. Mills, 



A. R. Clones, 

A. D. Gam age, 

P. T. Jackson, 

A. C. Slater, 

J. Greeley, 

A. E. Brown, 

T. G. Frothingham, 



Xll 



p. C. Brooks, 
S. Rccd, 
Wm. Perkins, 
A. Trowbridge, 
John A. Lowell, 

D. R. Whitney, 
Thos. Lamb, 
A. T. Lowe, 

C. W. Kennard, 

T. Wigglesworth, 

H. S. Grew, 

N. Silsby, 

Alpheus Hardy, 

C. Faulkner, 

S. T. Dana, 

J. W. Austin, 

G. A. Miner, 

I. N. Fiske, 

W. O. Grover, 

W. n. Spear, 

AV. H. Winslow & Co. 

H. W. Peabody & Co. 

Fowle & Carroll, 

A. Pickering, 

B. S. Pray, 

C. B. Patten, 

E. C. Millett, 
L. Stone, 

J. Foster, 
John G. Davis, 



G. C. Goodwin & Co., 

Robinson Bi'os. & Co., 

Fobes, Haywai'd & Co. 

Schlegel,Everett&Co. 

B. O. & G. C. Wilson, 

F. Jaques, 

J. A. Laforme, 

A. W. Stetson, 

E. T. Cowdrey & Co., 

Bray & Hayes, 

E. E. Rice & Co., 
Carter, Dinsmore & Co. 
Gilman Bros., 

T. Metcalf, 
M. Bartlett, 
N. Thayer, 
Chase & Co., 
W. F. Stahl, 
D. Handad, 

F. & F. Rice & Co., 
, B. H. Anthony, 

, J. C. Tyler, 

G. A. Downes, 
Wright & Moody, 
Stickney & Poor, 
Sears & Co., 
Geo. B. Emerson, 
J. W. Balch, 
Samuel Gould, 
G. T. Stoddard, 



H. F. Jenks, 

Geo. Baird, 
, I. Goodwin, 
, S. P. Tolman, 

A. W. Southwick, 

Jona French, 

J. D. W. French, 

W. G. Brooks, 

N. F. Frothingham, 

W. G. Fay, 

A. D. Evans, 
, J. T. Bradlee, 

D. L. Hill, 

E. B. Smith, 
I. Riley, 

T. F. Haskell, 
P. Nickerson, 
E. F. Pratt, 
H. H. Adams, 
S. C. J. Parker, 
W. H. Cundy, 
E. Coolidge, 
E. Tarbell, 
R. Pei-kins, 
D. Babcock, 
J. M. Corbett, 
A. Brown, 
W. P. Kuhn, 
H. Inches, 
J. S. Loverinsr. 



At the meeting of the Board of Aldermen, February 26th, 
the report of the committee was made, recommending the 
passage of the original order, as follows : — 

" Ordrred, That the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics'' Association 
be and hereby is authorized to erect a temjiorar}- building on the parade- 
ground of Boston Common for its triennial exposition of industry and 
art, to be occupied for that purpose during the months of Seiitember 
and October next, upon such terms and conditions as the Committee on 
Common and Public Grounds shall prescribe, and to be erected, main- 
tained and removed without expense to the City of Boston." 



The committee making the report were Aldermen Clark, 
Slade and Eobinson, Councilnien Howes of Ward 18, Smar- 



XUl 

don of Ward 10, Hiscock of Ward 21, Pope of Ward 14, 
and Dee of Ward 5. 

After debate, the order was passed by a vote of 9 to 3. 

Yeas : — Aldermen Breck, Burnham, Clark, Dunbar, Gib- 
son, Robinson, Slade, Viles and Wilder. 

Nays : — Aldermen Fitzgerald, O'Brien and Thompson. 

On March 1st the matter came up for action in the Com- 
mon Council. After considerable debate Mr. Spenceley, of 
Ward 19, offered the following- substitute ; — 

" Ordered, That the Committee on Common and Squares be, and they 
are hereby, requested, to remove all lamp-posts and all other obstruc- 
tions from that part of the Common known as the parade-ground, and 
that it be set apart for a play-ground for the youth of our city, and for 
parades at all times when occasion shall require." 

The substitute was adopted; yeas, 40, nays, 25. 

Yeas : — Messrs. Barnard, Barry, Blodgett, Cannon, 
Clarke, Coe, Crocker, Dauforth, Duggan, Fagau, Fernald, 
D. A. Flynn, Fraser, Ham, Hibbard, Kelley (Ward 3), 
Kelley (Ward 6), Kidney, Loughlin, McClusky, McDonald, 
McGaragle, Mo wry, Nugent, O'Connor, O'Donnell, J. H. 
Pierce, O. H. Pierce, Pratt, Reed, M. W. Richardson, 
Roach, Ruffin, Sampson, Spenceley, Thompson, Vose, War- 
ren, E. R. Webster, Wolcott. 

Nays: — Messrs. Beeching, Blanchard, Brintnall, Brown, 
Burke, Cross, Day, Dee, J. J. Flynn, Hiscock, Howes, 
Jackson, Morrill, Pearl, Perham, Pope, Roberts, Shepard, 
Sibley, Smardon, Stone, Thorndike, Upham, G. B. 
Webster, Wilbur. 

On March 5th the Aldermen debated the motion as 
amended by the Council, and refused to concur therein by 
the same vote of nine to three. 

Finally, on March 8th, the following proceedings were had 
in the Common Council : — 

" The amendment to the order to authorize the Massachusetts Charita- 
ble Mechanic Association to erect a building on the Common for their 
triennial festival came down with the non-concurrence of the other 
branch. 



XIV 

Mr. Smardon, of Ward 10, moved to suspend the rule and to lay the 
matter upon the table, that he might present a petition. 

The motion to suspend was declared carried. 

Mr. Speuceley, of Ward 19, doubted the vote, and the Council divided 
— 26 for and 22 against. The motion was lost. 

Mr. Croelvcr, of Ward 9, moved the indellnite postponement of the 
whole matter. 

Tlie question was then taken on the moti(jn to indefinitely postjDone, 
and it was carried — 42 yeas, 27 nays. 

Yeas : — Messrs. Barnard, Barry, Beeching, Blodgett, Cannon, Clarke, 
Coe, Crocker, Danforth, Duggan, Fagan, Felt, Fernald, 1). A. Fiynn, 
Fraser, Ham, llibbard, Kelley (Ward 3), Kelley (Ward 6), Kidney, 
Loughlin, ]McClusky, McDonald, McGaragle, Mowry, O'Connor, 
O'Donnell, Pearl, J. H. Pierce, O. H. Pierce, Reed, J. B. Richardson, 
M. W. Richardson, Roach, Ruffin, Sampson, Souther, Si^enceley, Thomp- 
son, Warren, E. R. Webster, Wolcott — 42. 

Nays : — Messrs. Blanchard, Brintnall, Brown, Burke, Cox, Cross, Day, 
Dee, Dohcrty, J. J. Flynn, Hiscock, Howes, Jackson, Morrill, Nugent, 
Perham, R. Pope, Roberts, Shepard, Sibley, Smardon, Stone, Thorn- 
dike, Upham, Vose, G. B. Webster, Wilbur — 27. 

Absent, or not voting, Messrs. Mullane, R. Pope, Pratt — 3. 

Subsequently Mr. Si^enceley, of Ward 19, moved to i-econsider the 
vote whereby the Council voted to indefinitely postpone the motion, 
hojiing it would not prevail." 

The reconsideration was lost, and this application was 
thereby definitely refused for the present year. 

In the mean time it was deemed best to attempt to procure 
a law, which should define and protect the rights of the 
public. The Committee of Remonstrants retained Messrs. 
William G. Russell and Robert D. Smith, to prepare such a 
law, and to advocate it before the House Judiciary Com- 
mittee. Two hearings were given by that committee, the 
latter, on March 8th, being a public one. Messrs. Russell and 
Smith appeared for the bill, and LcAvis J. Stackpole, Esq., 
under instructions from the City Government, appeared to 
oppose it. The order of the city was as follows : — 

" That the. Committee on Legislative ^Matters be requested to oppose 
any legislation which will tend to restrict the City Council in the care 
and management of the public grounds of this city." 

The bill asked for was reported by the committee, and 
with slight alterations was passed. It reads as follows : — 



XV 



[Chap. 223 op Acts of 1877.] 
AN ACT 

FOR THE PROTECTION OF PUBLIC COMMONS AND PARKS. 

Be it enacted, etc. 

Section 1. No building exceedino: six hundred squai-e feet in 
superficial area upon the ground shall be erected in or upon any pub- 
lic common or jjublic park which has been dedicated to the use of the 
public, without leave of the Legislature previously obtained. 

Sect. 2. Any violation of this act maybe restrained by the Supreme 
Judicial Court, or any justice thereof, in the manner provided in section 
seventy-nine of chapter eighteen of the General Statutes. 

Sect. 3. This act shall take effect upon its passage. 

[Approved May 11, 1877.] 

The Cf)mmittee believe that this act embodies the security 
which the public iuterests require, and respectfully submit 
this report as completing the duties with which they were 
charged. 

WILLIAM H. WHITMORE, 
GEORGE B. CHASE, 
HAMILTON A. HILL, 
ABBOTT LAWRENCE, 
CHARLES H. D ALTON. 



APPENDIX A. 



SECOND DAY. 

Saturday, Feb. 17, 1877. 

The committee met in the large committee-room at 3 o'clock, P. M. 

Present — Alderman Clark (chairman), and all the members of the 
committee. 

R. D. Smith nnd W. H. Whitmore appeared for the remonstrants ; Charles 
W. Slack for the petitioners. 

The Chairman. — This is an adjourned meeting of the Committee on Com- 
mon and Squares, on the petition for and remonstrance against granting the 
use of a part of the Common to the Charitable Mechanics' Association, for the 
erection of a temporary building for their triennial exhibition. The committee 
will first hear the remonstrants, wiio are entitled to the opening and closing. 
If this is not satisfactory to the remonstrants, they will please make their 
objections at the present time. 

Mr. Smith. — Do I understand that the case for the petitioners is closed? 

The Chairjian. — The whole case is open. The remonstrants will be heard 
first ; then the parties who present the petition ; and then the remonstrants will 
have an opportuuity to make the closing argument. That has been the custom 
in hearings before the Board of Aldermen and before committees. 

Mr. Smith. — Do you commence over again at each adjourned meeting? I 
understood that the petitioners closed their case at the last hearing, and that 
at this hearing the remonstrants were to go on. 

The Chairman. — The committee decide that this hearing is open for both 
the remonstrants and the petitioners. 

THE CASE FOR THE REMONSTRANTS. 

Mr. Smith. — In order to enable us to know who petitions for this, we have 
asked the Association to produce their records and show us who authorized this 
petition. We have been informed that the Association is not obliged to give 
any exhibition this year ; that it has not voted to do so ; indeed, that there is a 
strong feeling among many prominent persons connected with the Association, 
that there should be no exhibition this year, because it would bo a mere 
shadow of the Centennial, and prove a loss to the Association itself. In order 
to see upon what footing the Association comes here, I addressed a note to the 
Secretary of the Association, asking him if he would allow me to have a 
minute or a certified copy of the votes which had been passed in relation to this 
matter. I received a reply that he would send them to me. On calling at his 
oflEicelwas informed that they were sent to Mr. Slack, and that they were here. 
On asking Mr. Slack for them, he said he would not give them to me ; and I should 
like the committee to call for them officially. That you can do while we are 
determining upon what shall be the course pursued in putting our case. It 
seemed to us that they ought at least to ask for this privilege as an Association, 
before it was accorded. I have several letters which are addressed to your 
Honor, which I can perhaps relieve your Honor of the trouble of reading, if 
you wish me to. I have a letter from the Commander of the First Corps of 
Cadets : — 

Head-quarters 1st Corps Cadets, 

Massachusetts Volunteer Militia, 

Boston, February 16, 1877. 

Hon. John T. Clark, Chairman of Joint Committee on Common and 
Squares : — 

Dear Sir, — I am very sorry that, owing to a meeting of a board of military 
officers at the State House, from Li to 4 o'clock, to-morrow P. M., where, as 
its recording officer, I must be, I cannot go to the hearing on the subject of 



2 Appendix A. 

the Mechanics' Association Builtlins on the parade-grounds of the Common. 
Therefore. I take tliis means of adding my protest, as a connnanding officer of 
a hattalion of militia, against the erection of a buihUng on the only oi)en-air 
space available within the limits of the city proper for the drilling of troops. 
Even the lamji-posts already there stand in violation of the rights of the Bos- 
ton militia, and should be removed at once. I woidd respectfully call the atten- 
tion of your committee to Section 83, Chapter 320, Acts of 187-t, by which the 
Mayor and Aldermen of Cities and Selectmen of Towns are obliged to provide 
" suitable places for the parade, target practice and company drill of the 
militia belonging to their respective cities and towns." 

I submit that the Common has been always in the past, and is now, consid- 
ered as the place j)rovided by the city for the parades and drills of the 
militia; every part of the area of the enclosure, except the parade ground, is 
so cut up by malls, paths and lamp-posts that the parade ground alone is suit- 
able for use by the militia. Of late paths and posts have been allowed to 
injure it very much for use of militia. A building there would drive the mili- 
tia entirely from the Common. I protest, and so I believe will every militia 
officer in the State who has occasion to require the use of the parade-ground. 
I am, very respectfully. 

Your obedient servant, 

THOMAS F. EDMAXDS, 

Lieut. Col. Commanding. 

Head-quarters Second Brigade, 

Massachusetts Volunteer Militia, 

Boston, February 17, 1877. 

Hon. John T. Clark, Chairman of Committee on Public Grounds : — 

Sir, — Being unable to appear personally before your Honorable Committee, 
I beg to offer this protest against the proposed occupation of the Common by 
the Mechanics' Association. The committee are doubtless aware that the only 
building available for the drill of the battalions is the drill-shed of the Insti- 
tute of Technology, and that it is quite insufficient for the purpose. Mili- 
tary organizations larger than a company must, therefore, depend entirely 
upon the Common for whatever drills they may desire t(j have, and it would 
be of great injury to that portion of the State militia within the limits of the 
city, if their customary parade-ground were occupied at just the season of the 
year when it could be of use to them. 

In addition to this, such occupation would render it impossible for any mili- 
tary ceremony, inspection or parade of any kind to be carried out. 

Very respectfully, 

ROBERT G. SHAW, 
Lieut. Col. and Asst. Adjt. General, 2d Brigade M. V. M. 

This is from Lieut. Col. Wales, of the First Battalion of Infantry : — 

Boston, Feb. 16, 1877. 
Hon. John T. Clark, Chairman : — 

Dear Sir, — Allow me to enter an earnest protest against the use of the 
Common by the Mechanics' Charitable Association, not only as a citizen of 
Boston, but as an officer of our State militia. You know, sir, the services this 
class of our citizens performed during the war ; and, to strike nearer home, 
what they did after our great fire ; and it seems to me that they should have 
some voice in a movement which is to destroj' their only available drill-ground. 

Very respectfullv, 

NAT. WALES, 
Li. Col. Commanding 1st Batt. of hifantry, 2d Brig. M. V. M. 



I heartily endorse what my son has written above. 

Respectfully yours. 



T. C. WALES. 



Appendix A. 3 

I suppose it is in order, if your Honor please, to offer some further remon- 
strances. This is one signed by John C. Ropes, Wm. Amory, Thomas Jeffer- 
son Coolidge, Ezra Farnsworth and others. 

[Reading them.] 

The Chairman. — Quite a number of the names on this remonstrance are 
on the other remonstrances presented before. 

Mr. Smith. — That has been suggested to me ; but this one contains some 
others. 

[Reading remonstrance signed by Geo. Shattuck, E. R. Mudge and others. 
The several remonstrances were filed in the case.] 

J. D. Bryant. — In this connection will you allow me to hand in one remon- 
strance which I promised to deliver in person. I believe that no name will be 
found on this petition that is on another, and none have been added during the 
week. This petition should have been laid before the committee one week ago, 
but by some mistake it did not reach me in time. 

[Mr. Bryant read a remonstrance protesting against the erection of any 
building on the Common, signed by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Dr. E. H. Clarke 
and twenty-five or tliirty others.] 

The Chairman. — The Chair would state that he understands there has 
been a remonstrance signed at the Merchants' Exchange, and forwarded to 
City Hall ; but at the present time the committee are not aware that any such 
remonstrance has reached City Hall. Several gentlemen have come to the 
Clerk of Committees and wanted to sign their names to it. 

Mr. Smith. — It is one of those that I handed to you. 

The Chairman. — Mr. Joseph Coolidge, Mr. Daniel Parker and others 
called to sign it. 

Geo. VVm. Bond. — Please add my name to that remonstrance. 

[Samuel H. Russell, Avery Plumer, Henry Denny, Dr. J. B. Upham and 
Alexander Wadsworth severally requested the Chairman to have their names 
added to that remonstrance.] 

The Chairman. — Mr. Smith, will you proceed? 

Mr. Smith. — I think, perhaps, the committee ought to say whether we are 
entitled to see the records, by what authority the petition for the Charitable 
Mechanics' Association is filed. 

The Chairman. — The Chair can hardly see what the committee have to do 
with the records of the Charitable Mechanics' Association. The petition is pre- 
sented by the president of the Association, Mr. Joseph F. Paul, who is present, 
and can state whether he is authorized or not. 

Mr. Smith. — We want the records of the Association produced. 

The Chairman. — The committee decide that it can do nothing of the kind. 
The president is here, and can speak for himself. 

[The committee room being very much crowded, the hearing was adjourned 
to the Common Council Chamber.] 



Statement of William H. Whitmoke. 

Mr. Chairman, in rising to commence the case of the remonstrants against 
the proposed building, allow me to say that I think the delay in the progress 
of this hearing has been a fortunate one. However thoroughly the committee 
may have considered the case of the petitioners before agreeing upon the first 
favorable report, the public has so deep an interest in the matter that it may 
well desire to hear the evidence. Besides, I feel that the remonstrants have 
weighty reasons to urge which may cause you to reconsider your previous de- 
cision, and which, at all events, will justify them in the trifiing delay which 
they have caused. 

The petition now before you is of great importance, because it is a direct 
attack upon the safety of the Common, of which you are the official guardians. 
The care and custody of the Common has been entrusted to you chiefly with a 
view to its preservation for use as a common. If you decide to devote your 
charge to other and new purposes, you will be prepared and called upon to ex- 
plain that exercise of your powers. You are not in the position of a committee 
charged to lease the public property, and only anxious to obtain the best 
tenant on the best terms ; you are trustees holding a specific trust for purposes 



4 Appendix A. 

well known for many years, and if you use your legal powers to alter the 
trust, you must be clear in your opinion of your duty. 

This attack on the Common, I regret to say, is not the first, as I fear it A^ill 
not be the last. In 1869 it was proposed to put the Coliseum on this same 
spot, and permission was granted therefor. Yet the public dissatisfaction and 
regret were so loudly evinced that the recipients of the favor ilcclinod to 
accept it. They could not afford to slight the voice of their fellow-citizens, 
and they wisely sought another location. 

Since then, in 1874, an attempt was made to take a portion of the Common 
for a widening of Tremont street. The fence was taken down, only to be re- 
placed the next year, in accordance witli the demands of tlie public. 

In other years projects have been brought for laying out streets across the 
Common, extending Commonwealth avenue, Columbus avenue, etc. In 1875, 
however, the Legislature intervened, and put it out of the power of any acci- 
dental majority in the city government to lay out a street without the proper 
deliberation. 

I desire to state briefly the history of the Common, as there is a popular 
delusion on this point. Tliere is no deed of the Common specifying its uses 
and prescribing a penalty for any breacli, though such an idea is very preva- 
lent. It is the remainder of tlie land included within tlie limits of Boston, 
when the inhabitants stopped making grants. In 1040, only ten years after the 
first settlement of tlie town, it was voted that "there shall be nci land granted 
either for houseplot or garden to any person out of the open ground or common 
field." 

In 1646 it was repeated "that no common, marsh and pasture ground shall 
hereafter, by gift or sale, excliange or otherwise, be counted unto propriety, 
without consent of the major part of the inhabitants of the town." 

The Common, as we know it, has preserved about its present size for over a 
century. It once reached to JVIason street, but what was lost by making Tre- 
mont street the boundary was made up by the land added on Boylston street. 

The uses of the Common have been as well understood and maintained as 
its boundaries. Originally used for the cattle of tlie town, it later became the 
promenade and play-ground of the iniiabitants ; always preserving the idea 
that it was to be open and unencumbered with buildings. 

Tents have been put on it for temporary purposes, and at times wlien the 
public would not be incommoded. Possibly less stringent rules were in force 
when the town had 30,000 inhabitants than have since been required. Our 
object is only to consider the present time, and the wants of the present gen- 
eration. 

But one precedent has been given, — that of the flower-show a few years ago. 
We acknowledge that it was a bad step, a mistake regretted by many of the 
parties interested, and not objected to at the time, only because it was so 
small and so brief in its duration. 

We propose to meet the petitioners on every point. We shall sliow that 
they had no authority to make the request they have; that they have no 
regular plan of proceeding ; that tliey have no right to claim that any special 
benefit will accrue to the city, and that no exception should be made in their 
favor. We sliall show tliat tlie land is not suited to their ])urposes ; that 
much better sites are open to them; and that the question of locality ought 
not to decide whether or not they shall hold an exhibition this year. 

Lastly, we shall show, by many witnesses, that such a misapplication of the 
Common is viewed with intense dislike by all classes of our citizens ; that it 
is perfectly understood that the present question involves the whole matter 
of keeping the Common open ; and that the public is opposed to any such 
curtailment of its ancient rights. 

I shall not try to anticipate the arguments which will be made by others, 
and will confine myself solely to the one point, — that this particular petition 
ought not to be granted. 

The ground I take is this : That the Mechanics' Association has not made 
out its case by showing that its fair will be so great a benefit to the city as 
would warrant you in granting tlieir request. 

Their whole justification lies in the idea that their exhibition will so greatly 
increase the demand for our manufactures as to make a decided and percep- 
tible gain for us. 



Appendix A. 5 

This is not to be a show to benefit, improve or educate the spectators, such 
as we have had in Boston before. It is not to be a musical festival, a picture- 
show, nor a fiower-show ; it is not a religious nor an educational gathering. 

The petitioners come forward and ask this great concession from the city, 
mainly upon business grounds. Let us have this fair, they cry, and we will 
so demonstrate the superiority of New England manufactures to the crowds 
who will come here, that business will revive and prosperity ensue from the 
innumerable orders given for those goods. This is their main case, and by it 
the reasonableness of the application must be judged. 

Now, gentlemen, I contend that they are mistaken as to the effect of their 
fair if held, and still more as to the necessary means for managing such a 
fair. Great miscellaneous collections of sight-seers add little to the amount 
of local business. We may have any kind of a show in Boston, and bring 
thousands daily to it ; but the local trade is hardly influenced by it. These 
evidently are not the persons who will bring our great prosperity. The peti- 
tioners must promise us a great influx of buyers. Tliey must hope that this 
fair will attract the great merchants of the distributing centres South and 
West. They must hope that foreign buyers will come here, and then com- 
mence to send our manufactures to new and foreign markets. 

But what chance is there of this? The petitioners have given no evidence 
on this point. We all know that great national fairs are resorted to by many 
buyers ; but what probability is there that the Boston fair will so attract the 
world? Even the greatest of these fairs have been of very limited success; 
and as for these side-shows, these local exhibitions, what great influence can 
they hope to exert? 

But even if a great fair in Boston, one prepared with due care and zeal, 
and after the necessary years of preparation, might be a success, I must deny 
that your petitioners have shown that the^^ have projected such an one. 

There has been no preparation by the various industries of New England 
for this fair. We hear of no trade-meetings, no trade-committees, no can- 
vassing for exhibitions, no commissioners from other States, no pledge of the 
necessary funds. We do not find responsible capitalists or great manufac- 
turers at the head of the list, whose very names are omens of success. 

Dropping from the individuals, we do not even find the pledge of the Asso- 
ciation. I am credibly informed that the petitioners have not the consent 
of their Association yet even to the place of an ordinary exhibition. It is 
emphatically the crude and ambitious scheme of a few officials, not endorsed 
by their constituents as yet, and not backed up by any outside capital or 
co-operation. 

So far, indeed, the application reminds me of a certain episode of our last 
political campaign. A certain individual announced that there would be on a 
certain night a grand Democratic torch-light procession. He announced the 
route, the gathering-places of divisions, and the leaders. He asked for the 
police force, for Faneuil Hall, and for various other public concessions. The 
sagacious authorities, however, before granting his requests, made investiga- 
tion, and the applicant proved to be an intelligent, but irresponsible boot-black 
on Boylston street. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, I think your petitioners are somewhat in the same 
position. 

They make great promises, but they show no signs of keeping them. They 
are not authorized to speak for the manufacturers of New England, not even 
for tlieir own Association. They set out with a light heart to ask the city to 
grant them an inestimable boon, and they ask it with as much nonchalance as 
though their pockets were crammed with credentials. 

But at the first inquiry it seems that they have made no plans, have secured 
no support, and have no intelligent scheme of action prepared. Their only 
idea is to get the right to put a building on Boston Common, and all will be 
well. 

Gentlemen of the Committee, I for one must regard this application as 
unworthy trifling with a serious matter. I seriously consider it to be your 
first duty to dismiss the petitioners on the ground that they have made out no 
case. Until they can come before you with responsible backers ; witli the 
good-will of their own Association ; with the cordial co-operation of the great 
branches of our manufactures ; with a definite and reasonable plan for a 



6 Appendix A. 

building ; in fact, until they can show a reasonable chance of success, they 
have no riglit to ask for a hearing. Tiie feelings with which the Boston public 
regards the Common ought not to be trifled with ; and of the strength of those 
feelings, and the extent of tlieir power, you will have ample evidence from the 
witnesses who follow me. 



Statement of Arthur Pickering. 

I appear here, sir, as one of the remonstrants, and I was asked to come 
here. I rise now simply to say that I do not take any stock in the course of 
the argument of the gentleman on my left. In regard to the Common, I do 
not feel that it is of the slightest consequence whether the officers of the insti- 
tution have a clear right to come before the committee and ask for tlie Com- 
mon, or not. The question is whether the Common should be regarded as 
sacred property ; and on that account I do not think it should be given to any 
institution whatever, except for public uses. [Applause.] 

The Chairman. — The Chair asks both those in favor and those opposed to 
refrain from applauding. 

Mr. Pickering. — There was a time when there were names that would 
cause the blood of every true Bostonian to thrill. Those names were George 
Washington, Adams, Hancock, Otis, Faneuil Hall, the Old South, and last, 
but not least, Boston Conunon. I am not astonished, sir, in these times, that 
there are societies willing, in spite of those old and sacred memories, and ready 
to come liere and ask you to grant them a privilege which they ouglit not to 
have. That corporation, as I understand, is wealthy. It is rich, and it can 
go to any place other than the one it has in view. Why should it come here 
and ask you, Mr. Chairman, and me to give up our individual rights in that 
Common? I say, sir, as a citizen, I have a right, a personal right, to that 
Common, and you have a personal right in it, which these gentlemen have no 
right to ask you to grant to them. There is a proverb that the French have 
which is very trenchant. It is this : " It is the first step that costs." Grant 
this corporation the right to put a building upon the Common for three months, 
or once in three years, or any given time, and it takes away the sacred charac- 
ter of the Common. I say sacred, because there are convictions that ouglit to 
be cherished by Bostonians ; and I think it is more than a sentiment which is 
connected with the names I have mentioned. I know it is fashionable in mod- 
ern times to doubt a great many events in general history. I have had to give 
up my convictions, as a scliool-boy, that William Tell lived ; and I do not know 
but gentlemen here will tell me, by and by, that George Washington never 
existed, and that we have not any rights or interests that ought to be pro- 
tected. For one I come here not caring two straws whether the Mechanics' 
Association have a right to come here or not, and have not all tlie vouchers 
that they ought to have ; but I do say that these gentlemen here have no right 
to grant this request. 

Statement of Curtis Guild. 

I labor somewhat under the disadvantage of having been absent from the 
city for the past ten da^^s, having but just returned ; but I may say I have the 
advantage, sir, of having been associated with yourself and other gentlemen 
of the City Government for the last two years in the Committee on Common 
and Squares, and of having had various experiences with regard to Boston 
Common. I have looked ui)on this remonstrance not as an opposition to the 
very respectable and enterprising gentlemen who form tlie Massachusetts Chari- 
table Mechanics' Association in any respect whatever. I recognize their enter- 
prise. I have known them for twenty-five years past, and ever since I have 
had the honor of conducting a public journal, — and 1113' record is open in that 
respect, so that he who runs may read, — and I think that every man who 
feels an interest in Boston, if he looks back upon the record of the Associa- 
tion, will say it is one of the noblest and best of the manj- institutions that we 
have in this city, and right well it deserves, and should be most thoroughly 
endorsed by every citizen of Boston. 

But that is not the question. Let us be understood. It is not opposition to 



Appendix A. 7 

the Charitable Mechanics' Association ; but it is the question of preserving 
the people's park — Boston Common — upon which onslaughts have been 
made, as you, sir, and I know, from year to year, by those wlio think it is a 
mere tract of waste land, — an eligible spot for personal interests. We cannot 
blame the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics' Association, or any other 
association, for petitioning for the use of a portion of the public park, if they 
think there is any chance of its being granted. That, sir, is human nature ; 
for any one of us are willing to get good quarters rent free. I should go to 
you very readily and ask you for your store for three or six months if you 
would let me have it gratis, because I am public-spirited. But if I should 
make that appeal, I think you would say, I am a business man and you are 
another, and we must settle it upon business principles. And we ought to 
meet this matter upon business principles, although business should not 
come into question in a proposition to occupy Boston Common. 

I have read, I must say, with feelings of indignation — for I am a Boston 
boy, a graduate of our public schools, and have walked in its streets, and 
played upon its Common, and I must say I read with indignation — the very 
utilitarian and business remarks offered here in regard to the occupation of 
Boston Common by the representatives of the Mechanics' Association, in last 
Sunday's Herald. 

Gentlemen in defence said they had had no time for preparation. I want 
to ask gentlemen of the City of Boston here, if there is any man of them who 
wants any time for preparation when vandalism endeavors to raze the cher- 
ished landmarks in Massachusetts, which have come down from the foundation 
of the country. I do not want any preparation; I have not had any. I believe 
there are many men here who can talk from July to eternity against such 
propositions. Every man knows that in the first history of America that is 
put into his children's hands, very early — almost the first — in its pages is 
sometliing in regard to the City of Boston ; in regard to the opposition to the 
Stamp Act, the Massacre, Faneuil Hall, the Old State House, the Old South 
Church, and in regard to Boston Common ; and we now have great historical 
paintings, one of which I saw last week, which is being engraved by the most 
distinguished engravers in this country and Europe, representing Boston boys 
appearing before Gen. Gage petitioning that their "coasts" on Boston Common 
should not be destroyed by British soldiers. That picture is now in the pub- 
lishers' store in New York, and they have a copyright of the engraving; and 
that historical event is to be perpetuated in that manner. 

Well, sir, what do we do here in Boston? We propose to slice off as much 
of that historical spot as we can for the needs of business. Of course gentle- 
men recognize my meaning; and I wish to say, as A. Ward says, sarcastically, 
" There is nothing true but business." I alter the old hymn considerably, 
and say, "There is nothing true but business; we want nothing but busi- 
ness." We do not want to instruct our children, and will have nothing left 
to tell where Warren and other distinguished patriots spoke. This Boston 
Common, sir, — the place where the British soldiers were encamped, — is an 
important part of Boston's history. We did not want the old Hancock House ; 
it was better to have two magnificent mansions which will pay taxes — that is, if 
their owners stay in town after the first day of May. We had better have 
Boston Common with streets crossing it, because you and I can get down to 
our places of business five minutes earlier. All these must be thrown aside, 
because — because — all these matters must be second to — business. 

Let us look at this thing in another light. A large portion of the citizens of 
Boston are not heard. Yes, Mr. Chairman, not heard. But you, sir, have 
occupied a position in the City Government for a number of years ; and there 
are those within the sound of my voice who know that those men who are 
absent are felt when the day of election comes round. Those men cannot 
stand up here and talk as you and I can; they have not had the advantages of 
education ; they cannot even come here on Saturday afternoon. Those green- 
jacket, overalls fellows are working hard to get ten or twelve dollars a week, 
— if they are fortunate enough to receive two dollars a day, — so as to get on 
their best clothes and walk across Boston (^ommon on Sunday; and they can- 
not do that if you put this building there. Those men cannot afford to come 
here ; if so, we would find the gallery full of them. They do not have time 



8 Appendix A. 

to read the papers, and I doubt much whether they even know that this hear- 
ing is gointi on. 

I was astonished — not much, but I was somewhat — to see so many lead- 
ing gentlenion — personal friends of mine, everyone of them — in favor of 
putting tiiis building upon tlie parade-ground on Boston Common. Look over 
the names, seratim. One is a magnificent capitalist, a generous man, with a 
heart always open to generous impulses and petitions ; he owns an estate of 
macjnificcnt acres in the country, where he rides out and enjoys self, as he 
ought to do, the fruit of his honorable exertions ; and where his children can 
live and enjoy themselves, swim, play and boat, and do everything to their 
hearts' content. Another one is a particular friend of mine, whom I have 
known from boyhood u]), who last year retired from business : who owns a 
superb estate, and pays his taxes upon it — out of the city ; and who told me 
individually that he left town that his children might enjoy purer air than they 
can get here. 

I could enumerate others — one who sits so near me that I could almost 
throw my hat upon his head — who live out of the city of Boston. I wish to 
be understood. I know them personally to be liberal-hearted, charitable men, 
who lil)erally express their pity, not only with their pocket-books, but by their 
cheeks, wlien there is a call from the suffering. But I think they do forget, in 
their prosperity, that there is a class of people who appreciate the parade- 
ground upon the ('ommon. When the proposition came to put the parade- 
ground in its present condition, a number of people said boys wislied to play 
ball there. We made every objection, and said, " Here are fellows who have 
no business to do; they are loafing about there, and it is not safe to cross it." 
Well, some of them said, "Where shall we go? We can stand around the 
grog-shops at the North End ; but is it not better to be on the Common playing 
ball tlian at such places? " AVe had to let it go for a whole year to accommo- 
date that class of men. I argued that it was better for that class of men to be 
wandering over Boston Common than to be lounging around haimts of vice in 
other parts of the city. Well, sir, the Charitable Mechanics' Association have 
done a great deal for the City of Boston, and the city has outgrown them. 
When Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market were large enough, the city was very 
much smaller than it is now. I need not go into that, for I do not wish to 
trespass upon the committee; but it seems to me — if I might be allowed to 
suggest to the Association and to those connected with them, — and my friend 
Mr. Slack knows that I have an interest in them, — that if they would imitate 
the enterprise of Cincinnati, and raise a fimd for a permanent exposition 
building, — it might be open yearly, or as often as they open it now, and they 
would certainly meet with a most cordial endorsement from the pocket of the 
public. 

I have spoken without any preparation whatever; I came here at the earnest 
solicitation of friends But I came here to say you M'ill always be able to find 
us here wlien anybody is going to encroach upon Boston Common. And when 
they want to remove the Old South Church you can safely count me opposed 
to it. I believe we should have something above and beyond business, al- 
though my record has been that of a practical business man. But if there is 
to be nothing but business, when Boston Connnon is brought up before us, 
why, instead of granting the petition of the Mechanics' Association, let us do 
as Major Jack Downing said, " Let us go the wiiole figure." Let us put rows 
of streets on Boston Common, cover it with magnificent warehouses ; let us 
remove the trees and j^ut magnificent dwellings there ; let us take down 
Bunker Hill Monument and make a superb sea-wall of it, and cover the place 
where it stands with splendid warehouses. Then when every sentiment shall 
have given way to trade and business, you may be sure that when you strike 
upon men's breasts you will get, instead of the sound of true patriotism, the 
rattle and ring of the Almighty Dollar. 

Q. (By Alderman KonixsoN.) — I wish to ask the gentleman a question. 
Mr. Guild. I lielieve you visited the Paris Exposition of 18G7? 

A. I did, sir. 

Q. Wiiere was that exposition held? 

A. On the Champ de Mars. 

Q. That bears the same relation to Paris that the Common does to Boston, 
does it not? 



Appendix A. 9 

A. No, sir. I beg pardon, it is a much larger institution, and it does not 
bear the same relation. Paris has the Bois de Boulogne, Champ de Mars and 
a great many other parks ; while we in Boston, who oppose parks, can carry 
out notliing of the kjnd. 

Q. Do you remember the building on the Champs Elysees? 

A. I remember visiting it, perfectly. 

Q. I recollect, sir, if you will allow the expression, that some friends had 
been travelling with you, and we expected to see you there at the same time ; 
but they told me you were in Ireland, engaged in climbing up to kiss the Blar- 
ney stone? 

A. Yes, sir, I have often been climbing while others waited. But what has 
that to do with this? 

Q. Did that building desecrate the Champ de Mars? 

A. I cannot say whether it desecrated it or not. But we are discussing the 
Boston Common, and not the parks of Paris. 

Q. But I asked you the question. 

A. I am not aware that the comparison is a proper one. The Champs Ely- 
sees are a series of public streets, and not a public pleasure-ground like the 
Common. 

Q. Docs that properly designate the Champs Elysees? 

A. I cannot say that it will properly bear comparison with Boston Common. 

Q. (By Mr. Smith.) — I wish to ask you one question, becaiise it throws 
some light upon this subject. Has it not been proposed to make the building 
on the Champ de Mars public? 

A. Yes, sir, I think it has. I would like to make one remark to my friend 
(Aid. Robinson) who asked the question, and I will adopt the American style 
of answering one question by asking another. Have you visited Temple Bar, 
in London? ' 

Alderman Robinson. — I have, sir; I have passed there a hundred times. 

Mr. Guild. — Well, sir, it is well known that that is a great obstruction to 
travel. It is one of the most prominent obstructions in the whole of London ; 
and yet it has been preserved there, tumbling to pieces and dangerous as it is, 
simply for its historic associations. The Londoners will not pull it down. 

Alderman Robinson. — There is no difficulty in passing there. There are 
two ways of getting round it. 

Mr. Guild. — So there are two ways of going round Boston Common. 
Temple Bar separates "Westminster from the city, — an ugly barrier in the 
way of public travel. 

Alderman Robinson. — Precisely; but it is not a public street? 

Mr. Guild. — It is a tolerated barrier in one of the most public and crowded 
streets in London. 



Statement of Gen. Samuel M. Quinct. 

Gen. QuiNCY. — I propose to occupy a very few minutes of the committee's 
time this afternoon, and to devote those few minutes to the presentation, with 
all the simplicity and force at my command, of a dry point of law. Although 
I cannot but regard the present attack upon the Common as of the same 
nature and origin — cut as it were from the same piece of cloth, as have been 
previous assaults — the attempted widening of Tremont street, the proposed 
bisection of the Common by a street, and the preliminary slaughter, by 
asphalt, of the elms which guarded the point of entrance at Park-street 
corner ; yet I propose to waive at the present time all objections to the 
measure upon its merits, and consider only the question of its legality. 

Granted, for the sake of argument, that the measure is a highly desirable 
one, yet all will admit that whenever action, however desirable, is clearly 
prohil)ited by law, the only resort of law-abiding citizens or city governments 
is to the Legislature ; any attempt to override or defy the law is sure to be 
checked by the appropriate tribunals. 

Now, my point is simply and very briefly this — that by the principles of 
laAv which govern the dedication of land to public uses, the humblest citizen 
of Boston has a vested right to the enjoyment of the whole area of the Com- 
mon, under proper restrictions for certain purposes, which right of enjoyment 



10 Appendix A. 

for such purposes the courts will recognize and protect, and the Legislature 
alone can take away. 

The citv government cannot legally say to the humblest citizen, you must 
give up your use of such and such jiortions of tlie Common for the enjoyment 
of air, exercise, trees, grass and foliage, and accept in return something far 
better, if not for you individually, yet for the community at large. That 
citizen, however humble, would have the right to reply. Granted, that what 
you offer in exchange is worth tenfold what you would take away, yet the 
latter is my right by law, and tliercfore something which the Legislature alone 
can take from me against my will. 

Now, I think that if the committee admit, as I think they must, that we 
remonstrants, who can be numbered, if necessary, by thousands, are firmly 
convinced — erroneously if you will, but honestly — tliat that which we sliould 
lose by the establishment of this precedent is worth not ten but a hundred-fold 
that which you off'er us in exchange, then I think this committee may well 
hesitate before recommeiuling the measure until all doubts of its legality 
disappear, for the legality is certain to be tested. 

Now, where land is dedicated to public use as an open square of a city the 
public acquire a vested riglit to its possession for that use, not for an incon- 
sistent but better use, but /or that use (Cincinnati vs. White's Lessee, 6 Peters, 
431); and in the case of New Orleans vs. United States, 10 Peters, 602, it 
was held that land could be so dedicated to public use without vesting the 
legal title in any corporate body, and that even the erection of buildings 
thereon was not strong evidence against the public right. 

But I cannot, Mr. Chairman, state the law with anything like the clearness 
and force with which it has been already stated, upon precisely this point of di- 
yerting the Common from its particular uses, by those eminent lawyers, Jeremiah 
Mason and Franklin Dexter. In the year 1843 the city government desired 
to sell a portion of the Common, l)ut, being doubtful of their right, made up a 
case for the opinion of the eminent counsel referred to. Those opinions were 
then published in pamphlet form, and, though copies are rare, one has fallen 
for a time into my hands. Let me read a few extracts. 

Mr. Mason says: "It is matter of notoriety that from ancient time, com- 
mencing near the first settlement of the town, the Common has always been 
kept as a public square or park, and freely used hy the public for military 
trainings, and as a place of genera! resort for exercise and the circulation of 
pure and wholesome air. During this long period the Coiumon has never 
been applied to any use inconsistent with this public use. Such use and 
occupation by the public from time immemorial is evidence of the dedication 
of this land by the owners, whoever they were, to the public for the uses and 
purposes to which it has licen applied." Mr. Mason cites the cases to which I 
have referred, and concludes: "I am, therefore, of opinion that the City 
Council has no lawful authority to sell the lands in question for any use 
inconsistent with the public use to which they were originally dedicated." 

Mr. Dexter says : "A clearer case of dedication cannot be stated. The 
grant to the public, when once made by dedication, is perpetual and irrevocable, 

and binds the land, into whosever hands the estate may come The will 

of the owner once clearly expressed and carried into effect vests a perpetual 
right in the public — not to the fee of the land, for that may still reside in 
the dedicator, and may, perhaps, be transmitted by inheritance or assigned by 
deed, but the right to use it for the purposes of the dedication remains with 
the public. It is obvious that individuals acquire vested rights in such a 
dedication ; they purchase and liuild in the neighborhood upon the faith of it ; 
and the use is not a corporate but an individual use, in which every citizen 
has a part and a right." 

Mark these words, Mr. Chairman — it is not theCity of Boston as a corporation 
which has a right to this particular use, for if it were the city as a corporation 
might waive the same ; the right is every citizen's in his individual cai)acity. 
Mr. Dexter continues: "It will be observed that I do not found my denial 
of the right of the City Council to sell these lands upon the prohibition con- 
tained by implication in the city charter, but upon the prior dedication to pub- 
lic uses, which it would require all the powers of the Legislature to revoke." 

The city may not sell this land, say these eminent lawyers, not because 
they do not own the fee, but because such sale would interfere with the pub- 



Appendix A. 11 

lie use to which it has been dodicatecl and in which each citizen has a part and 
share. How manifestly absurd would be the position that thoui^h they may 
not by sale indirectly interfere with the citizens' use of the land for air, exer- 
cise, trees, .sjrass, arid foliage, yet that tliey may directly put a stop to such 
use over whatever extent, and "for whatever period of time they may see fit, by 
leasing, for the erection of buildings, a quarter, half, or three-quarters of the 
Coinnion, whenever, in their opinion, its occupation by corporations or indi- 
viduals will help trade and advance the general prosperity ! 

The fallacious reasoning of those of the City Government who are known 
to favor the granting of this petition, seems to me to be as follows: "The 
Common," tliey say, "is in our hands to be devoted to such purposes as we 
honestly and firmly believe will be for the highest and best interests of all the 
citizens. This use of it will be for such highest and best interests, there- 
^o^-e"— Not so, Mr. Chairman, the City Government have no more right to 
devote the Common to what they believe to be its highest and best use, because 
they so believe, than you or I individually have. The Legislature, and the 
Legislature only, can deprive the meanest citizen of his right to a certain par- 
ticular use, be it the best or the worst — the right to its use for an open park 
and pleasure ground — a refuge from the close streets and red-hot bricks of 
July to a little oasis in the midst of the city, where grass, trees, foliage, and 
cooling breezes may be enjoyed withont money and without price. 

We remonstrants have been styled, Mr. Chairman, by the advocates of this 
petition, obstructionists and foes to progress. I, for one, accept the title wil- 
lingly. The progress which we would check we believe to be false progress 
— dangerous progress. What man would trust himself aboard a railway train 
if tliose obstructionists and foes to progress the brakcmen should, following a 
bad example, strike and desert tlieir posts? Convinced, as we are, that in 
this matter our municipal locomotive is in danger of being switched on to a 
•wrong track, we propose to hold down the brakes by every legal and proper 
exertion, with our utmost force, until the train is brought to a standstill, and we 
are confident of success. 



Statement op Alexander Wadsworth. 

Mr. Wadsworth. — I would state at the beginning that I am a member of 
this Association, and have its welfare as much at heart as any other member. 
But that is not the question before you at this time. I simply Avish to state a 
few facts and some reasons why the committee, or the City Council, should 
not grant this petition. In 1824:, when the city proposed to sell the land south 
of Boylston street, and run a street down to the empty basin, the citizens were 
called together to vote upon two, among other, questions ; one of wliich was, 
whether they should sell the land ; and another was, whether, if they did sell 
the land, they would have inserted in the deed of conveyance that no building 
should ever be placed or erected upon the Common and the land west of 
Charles street, extending to the channel and from Beacon street, 1,3.50 feet 
soutli to Boylston street. The citizens voted not to sell the land, and they 
voted, by a very large vote (more than three to one) that, if the land was sold 
this condition should he inserted in the deeds. 

Now, I mention this to show the feeling of the citizens at that time in regard 
to placing buildings upon the Common ; and I believe that feeling is much 
stronger to-day among the citizens than it was then. Then, at a period in the 
early part of our civil war, it was proposed to place a building on the parade 
ground on the Common, for the purpose of drilling the recruits, that were 
being enlisted at that time, during the evening and in unpleasant weather, 
when the open air was uncomfortable. If that building had been placed on 
the Common, I must call your attention to the fact that it would have stood 
on a different footing from this case ; — it was to be built by the city and 
under the city's control ; — and if there ever was a case that would justify 
the erection of a building on the Common, I think that was one. But there 
was so strong a feeling against putting buildings upon the Common that the 
project Avas defeated. 

Then again, sir, during the preparations for our first great musical jubilee, 
there was an attempt made — and it was advocated by many influential and 



12 Appendix A. 

/ealmis people who had an interest in the matter — to put the Coliseum upon 
the Coiniuun ; hut the people rose up in their majesty and defeated that. 

Then, sir, after our preat fire in 1872, there was a project to allow mer- 
chants, who had had their stores burned down, to erect stores on the Tremont- 
street mall ; hut that was defeated. And now, sir, comes the Massachusetts 
Charitable Meclianics' Association, and asks the City Council to let them have, 
say one-tenth of the whole Common, including the l)urying-ground, and it 
would take probably more than that. I was not present at the last hearing, 
but I saw it stated that the building was to be 200 feet wide, and from 800 to 
1,200 feet long. A building 800 feet long would cover about four acres, and 
one 1,200 feet long, six acres; and with the surroundings, fifty per cent, 
more, would make from six to nine acres that this Association would want to 
occupy and monopolize. That, sir, is from one-sixth to one-eighth of the 
whole Common. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, I do not believe the Committee or the City Coimcil will 
grant this petition ; but, for the sake of showing the result, we will suppose 
they do. Here is a precedent formed ; the Association has an exhibition once 
in three years ; this building is to be built in sections, to be taken down and 
preserved for future use ; at the end of three years they will come back again 
with this same petition and want the ground again ; and again at the end of 
six years, and so long as the grass grows and the water runs, if the Associa- 
tion exists as long. After this privilege has once been granted, and the pre- 
cedent established, they can come with a good claim for a second occupation ; 
and it would be a great inconsistency not to grant it. Well, suppose they do. 
Suppose, Mr. Chairman, that Mr. Barnum should come along with his great Hip- 
podrome, and ask leave to pitch his tent on the Common ; after having allowed 
it in this way. how could you refuse him? But if you do refuse him, one of 
these days Messrs. Moody and Sankey will come to Boston and find their tab- 
ernacle taken down or occupied for other purposes, and they will ask you to 
allow tliem to build a temple on the Common ; and these gentlemen have a 
large following, and, sir, if you sliould not be hero yourselves, your succes- 
sors may be a little weak in the knees, and with such a following as that, and 
with your example, and tlijs precedent before them, they would hardly think 
of denying the request. Now, sir, if we have too much park in the Common 
already, and can afford to part with a large part of it during that season of the 
year when it is of any use to those citizens who live in close, narrow streets 
and hot dwellings, when thousands of them flock daily to this land; if we 
have more than we want, and can spare part of it for other purposes, why is 
this great interest manifested in laying out parks in districts of the city 
where they will never be of any use to those who visit the Common and reap 
the benefits, but will be mainly for those rich men who own carriages or have 
the means of driving out to them, and who go out of town in summer — some 
to avoid taxes and some to enjoy the cool breeze among the mountains, or 
those who go to reap the benefit of the bracing airs of the salt water on the 
seashore? But, Mr. Chairman, these are not the main reasons, in my judg- 
ment, for giving these parties leave to withdraw. 

The City Charter expressly says that the City Council shall not lease or sell 
the Common ; that is one of the things the City Council cannot do, and it is 
the very thing this Association asks you to do ; for you will find — I am no 
lawyer, but there are lawyers here who will say whether it is sound law or 
not — the principle is laid down by Ex-Governor Washburn, late professor of 
law in Harvard College, and Chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the 
Htmse of Representatives, that in this very thing — where the city grants this 
Association the exclusive use and control of a part of the Conunon to erect 
buildings, take admission fees, and enjoy the benefits and profits of the exhi- 
bition — the principle is laid down that that is a lease ; whether the Association 
pays the city or not [applause], that it is a lease. It does not require the pay- 
ment of rent to make a lease of it. Now, sir, I believe that there are lawyers 
here who will tell you that this is good law, and that your City Solicitor will 
tell you the same thing. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, I think that this committee, acting on their own respon- 
sibility, and with good judgment and common sense, will report against the 
granting of the petition of this Association, and that the City Council will give 
them leave to withdraw. If they do not, I have a full and unbounded 



Appendix A. 13 

I 

faith that there are citizens enough in Boston yet who still appreciate the beauty 
and use for which the Common was set apart, and who have often stepped 
forth before to prevent this beautiful ground from being cut off and frittered 
away ; and I believe they will come fortli again and prevent this beautiful Com- 
mon from being desecrated by this act of the Association; and if I am wrong in 
my belief that the committee will reject this petition, then I believe these men 
will very easily, through the courts, obtain an injunction which will set this 
matter at rest forever. 

Q. (By Mr. Smith.) — Has your Association voted in approval of this 
petition? 

A. I have no knowledge of it, sir. I see by the record in the clerk's hands 
here that there was a meeting held on the third of January which submitted 
the matter to the government of the Association, and if they approved of it, they 
were to call another meeting of the Association; but I have had no notice of a 
meeting since then, and I think they are making the petition without any vote 
of the Association. I believe that, if called together, the Association would 
vote it down. [Applause.] 



Statement of George B. Chase. 

Mr. Chase. — Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee : — In the 
very few words which I had the opportunity to say to you at the close of the 
first public hearing of the petitioners and remonstrants, I called your attention 
to one consideration, which seemed to me fairly to cover the whole case upon 
which you are asked to report. I asked you to give due weight to the fact, 
that there has been, within the last twenty years, a great increase in the 
number of people of both sexes and of all ages who use and enjoy the Common 
during the summer and autumn months. This increase is duo hardly more to 
the growth of our population, than to a change which has gradually made itself 
apparent in the habits of our native-born fellow-citizens, who now use all our 
parks and squares more than their parents did before them. They conform in 
this use naturally to the ways of our foreign population, who have brought 
from Great Britain and the continent of Europe, especially from the latter, the 
habits of the people of their native lands in the simple, hearty, and earnest 
enjoyments they obtain out of doors upon Sundays and holidays, traits which 
some of your own number, Mr. Chairman, must have noticed in their pleasant 
visits to the difierent capitals of the Old World. 

I ventured briefly last Saturday to outline my own belief that the increase 
of numbers upon the Common in the pleasant season was such as to make it, 
at last, necessary for the City of Boston, once and for all, to declare that no 
structure should be hereafter erected upon the Common ; neither should there 
be any concession or limitation hereafter imposed in the use of it for the bene- 
fit of one class or one body of our fellow-citizens rather than another, except 
such as may be necessary to keep it from detriment, or to enhance its beauty. 
I ask once more, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, that you will fully and fairly 
consider the question in the light of this view of the case. With the recollec- 
tions of the last few years in my mind, Avith the distinct impressions of the 
greater number of men, women, and cliildren, who upon sununer afternoons 
have poured out of the Common and Public Garden upon the broad avenue 
which runs into the sunset, when I have been able to count them by hundreds 
in an evening walk from Arlington to Dartmouth street, I feel most strongly 
that there has been no sufficient consideration among the few which the peti- 
tioners have submitted to you which should weigh upon your minds. You are 
bound, as you must admit, to recollect the convenience of all, and to favor the 
hasty pretensions of none, who may be disposed, for a selfish object, however 
worthy that object may be in itself, to interfere and curtail the enjoyments of 
the vast numbers of those who in summer are unable to leave the heated city 
in which they live. 

A friend of mine said, the other day, that it was but fair to assume that, in 
proportion as the population within the limits of old Boston increased, so the 
number of persons who visited the Common increased. This assumption is so 
modest that I believe no man will deny it. But it states but half the truth, 
for within the last thirty years the Common, which was so long upon the out- 



14 Appendix A. 

skirts of our population, has now come to lie in about the centre of it. The 
habits of Bo><tonians upon Sundays, thirty years a^o, were very diflerent from 
■what tliey are now. Then the Sunday of our cliildliood difi'ered but little 
from the Sabbath of the old riiritan town of Boston. People went to church 
or stayed mostly within doors, except for an hour or more after afternoon church. 
Our foreign population waa» still small ; it was principally composed of the 
Irish, and they were largely under the influence of. their priesthood, who 
counselled them wisely to a quiet demeaner, and to conform their own ways to 
the ancient customs of New England. The Common, except upon Fast Day 
and the Fourth of July, was rarely crowded. Boys, in the spring, made, with- 
out molestation, large holes to play marbles, in the principal paths and malls. 

The Latin and High School pupils, who had just moved into their new building 
in Bedford street, played hockey in the autumn from the Joy and West-street 
path eastward to Park-street fence, without a policeman to watch them, and 
without so nuich as a baker's dozen of idlers interested in the progress of their 
game, where there would be thousands to run and see them now. Yet that 
very ball-ground was then, as it is now, the most frequented part of the Com- 
mon. Occasionally a sort of town and goAvn row between the young lovers 
of the humanities in Bedford street and the less fortunate " Mason-streeters," 
as they were termed, arose upon the slopes below the ghincko tree, nor did 
the parents wonder, when the young hopeful came home to his suj)per with a 
cut lip, a smashed nose, or a bruised eye, that such tilings should be, although 
some mothers lanu^nted that their children would not go round the Common, 
as they did, instead of across it. There were no lights, in those years, upon 
the Common, and the evening shades were so dark tiiat the timid among the 
few at the West End who then ventured, after nightfall, to cross it, were some- 
thnes haunted wuh the fear of the highwayman ; and they breathed a pious 
prayer of thanksgiving as the soft light of the oil-lamps in the windows of the 
dwelling-houses upon Tremont street showed them that they were again 
approaching the abodes of men. 

The parade-ground, which was then crossed by ope long and narrow walk, 
half path and half causeway, was little better tlian a marsh. 

Such, Mr. Chairnum, were some of the habits of Bostonians in the first half 
of this century, and such were some of the scenes upon the Common. Such 
was the little use made of it, Avhen temporary buildings and mammoth tents 
were occasionally, and, without objection, permitted to be erected upon it, — 
as has been wildly referred to by one or two gentlemen upon the other side as 
a precedent for your action now. The feeling of all classes thirty years ago 
in regard to the Common reseml)led more nearly that entertained by their 
ancestors in the seventeenth century than the feeling of any class or portion 
of our people to-day. 

Why, Mr. Chairman, it is not fifty years yet since the City Council, by 
resolve, forbade tlie pasturage of cows upon the Common. It is hardly forty 
years since your predecessors put an iron fence around it; and, since that day, 
there has been on your part, not always wisely, perhaps, not always success- 
fully, but, in the nuiin, with good intent, a system of improvement in the plant- 
ing of trees, in the protection of turf, and in the maintenance of pathways, by 
which you iiave simply striven to meet the just will and expectations of our 
citizens. 

I have said enough to show that no inference can be drawn, no deduction 
made, nor precedent be here established, from the facts in the past or from the 
things that were done upon the Common with the permission or approval of 
the townspeople fifty, sixty, or even thirty years. 

Eigiit years ago, Mr. Ciiairman, tliese halls were filled, as they are now, 
with representatives from every class and every section of our city. They 
came here to protest, as we come to-day, against a hasty order which tlie 
Board of Aldermen had had reported to them, granting our parade-ground for 
the erection of a large building for the Peace Jubilee, so called, 'ihe Board 
unwisely passed the order, and tlien had tlie profound satisfaction of seeing 
the gentlemen to whose blandishments, against their own better reason, they 
had yielded, quietly turn their backs upon the Board and tlie order they had 
got from it, and build their so-called Coliseum where the defenders of the 
integrity of the Common had told them to go. 

Mr. Chairman, the feeling to-day is stronger than it was then. The youths of 



Appendix A. 15 

that year are the voters of to-day. The excellent education our schools have 
given them, in a taste for the beautiful in art and nature, in a sense of the duties 
of citizenship, in a love of justice and fair dealing to their neighbors and fellow- 
men, has reinforced the army that is always ready to rise and defend Boston 
Common from encroachment ; and we are here to-day to protest against it as 
unnecessary, unjust and unwise. We regard it as an infringement upon the 
rights of all, and as a most wanton encroachment upon the enjoyment — aye, 
the health — of the great mass of our neighbors and townspeople, who, in the 
heats of summer, obtain upon the Common their only breath of fresh air. 

We denounce it as the denial of the right of all classes, of both sexes and 
of all ages, under the law to freely use and freely enjoy Boston Common. 
Better abolish tiie name of Common at once than allow by any act of yours 
such a perversion of its use by a wealthy corporation, which seeks a selfish 
end, and which has, with an almost inexplicable hardihood, avowed through its 
president, in his testimony before you, that they would have Boston Common if. 
they could get it, no matter how deep, how sincere, might be the protest of a 
minority, however large that minority might be, so long as it was a minority. 
They have declared, too, that if they can have the parade-ground this year, 
they will be regular users every third year hereafter, if they can get it, as 
they expect to do, without a struggle, once the precedent be established. 

I pass over the other points of the remonstrants, as it is unnecessary for 
me to add one word to what has been and what will be so forcibly stated by 
others. 

Statement of Rev. Father J. P. Bodfish. 

Mr. Bodfish. — Mr. Chairman, I came here as a citizen to express my 
reverence for this sacred enclosure. Although I might speak as a native, and 
one whose family has been identified with the history of Massachusetts since 
1630, still, as it lias been presented here so ably in all the legal points of view, 
perhaps it will be more becoming in me to speak of the moral aspects of the 
case ; and as, on a former occasion, when we were discussing the necessity of 
parks, I said tlien, it seems to me to be evident, it is the teacliing of all 
theology (and that is founded upon the Scriptures), that gentlemen holding 
the honorable position which the meml)ers of this committee hold, are con- 
stituted, by the moral law, the guardians and protectors of the poor ; and in 
the order of God's Providence it is their duty — they are bound in con- 
science — to look after their every interest, for they cannot be here to speak 
for tliemselves, and they have entrusted their rights to your care. 

Now, one of the duties which devolve upon the City Government is to pro- 
vide for the health, comfort and entertainment of the people ; and for that it is 
evident we need parks, where they can enjoy suitable recreation. You know 
how strongly it has been urged on the government that the accommodations in 
this matter should be increased. 

We all know that Boston is far behind every other city in this country, not 
to speak of Europe ; and it is a reproach to Boston that we are so hard at 
work making money, arid are so utilitarian that we cannot afford space enough 
where the people can breathe fresh air and have recreation. 

I trust that this reproach will be removed soon, for I feel that it is a re- 
proach. Now, it is proposed to take away a large portit)n of the little space 
we have for the health of the poor. The idea seems preposterous. It would 
be an outrage and a shame. If you would go around among the poor, as it is 
my duty to do ; if you would go down into one of those crowded streets, and 
up to the fourth story, wiiere there is a widow witli five children, working 
hard all day long to obtain bread enough to keep life in their bodies ; and 
when you ask her where are her little ones, she will say she has put the 
younger ones in charge of the older ones, and they are all out on the Common. 
It is the only rest and enjoyment she has. So you will find it very general in 
this and other cities, tliat they send their children out upon the pleasure 
grounds, while they can pursue their work, and have a little peace and rest at 
home. 

And you should hear the complaints of the boys since the play-ground upon 
the Common has been taken away. They felt very strongly about that ; they 
think it is all very fine for tliose people who can go to the opera and the 



16 Appendix A. 

theatre, and have every kind of recreation and enjoyment all day long, but 
for them it is very hard to be dcpriveil of their only place for recreation. By 
and by these boys will be voters, and they will then have an opinion upon the 
subject, which they will express. Therefore, I speak for tlie ]»oor ; and I say 
we have no risijht — you have no riijht — morally, and before God — and I am 
very glad to have it demonstrated here this afternoon tliat we have no legal 
right (for we all know that the civil law is founded on the law of God) — to take 
away this heritage of the poor. I am sure that in a moral point of view you 
cannot, in conscience, thus invade the heritage of the poor. 

There is another tiling which we should remember, and it has also been 
suggested this afternoon, tiiat the safety of the people and the welfare of the 
city depend upon the entertainment of these lower, laboring classes, if you 
class them as such. What endangered the safety of Paris? Why, the mob, 
and communism. What have we to fear in the future? It is from the dis- 
content of a wronged and outraged people. How can we prevent this? 
By giving to these lower classes everything that they in right and justice 
demand ; and nothing will so ensure the welfare and stability of the State as 
the blessings of the poor ; nothing will bring trouble to it quicker than the 
cries of the poor (for, if we are allowed to quote them, the Scriptures tell us 
that the cries of the poor are heard before God), and we know, when they 
have risen up in their strength, that strongest thrones have crumbled to the 
dust. I know of only one spirit which animates this government, and that is 
the care of this class — those laboring people — who have entrusted their 
interests to your hands. I am sure you will do everything that is honorable 
and just; and I am sure that you are not so wholly given up to utilitarianism 
as to consent to sacrifice so great a blessing to the poor as this. [Applause.] 

Statement of John C. Ropes. 

Mr. Ropes. — What I have to say will be in a few words. I think that one 
of the things which ought to be settled is, that Boston Common should always 
be devoted to green grass and trees ; nothing else should be allowed there. 
A few years ago, I remember that a mayor came from Newburyport and wanted 
to run a road through the Common ; but such a preposterous proposition was 
denied. Then the proposition came to put the Coliseum on the Common ; and 
that was denied. Now comes this application to hold this exhibition on the 
Common ; and I do not see why, if it goes on there, there is any sort of reason 
for denying to other persons the right to do the same thing. Take the Taber- 
nacle on Tremont street, for instance : it is for the promotion of a higher 
object than this exhibition. Why not allow that to be placed there? The 
Common has always been set apart for the free use of the people ; but if this 
precedent is once established, a permanent building like this can easily be 
maintained there, if the city should ever have large jiarks. The parks in 
Europe, on which buildings are erected, are large, whereas the Common is 
very small, and we should be careful not to allow any encroachments upon it. 
In looking around this room, I I)clieve that a majority of the people here are 
of the class who do not use the Common, but they believe that it should be 
preserved. I wrote a letter to my friend. Rev. Phillips Brooks, asking him to 
be here this afternoon, and I received sin answer, which I \v411 read. 

[Mr. Ropes read the foUoAving : — ] 
Letters from Rev. Phillips Brooks and Rev. James Freeman Clarke. 

February 17, 1877. 

My dear Ropes : — I am sorry that I have an appointment for this after- 
noon which will not allow me to come to the hearing at the City Hall. If I 
could I would gladly be there to remonstrate against the use of the Common 
in the way that is proposed. There was a time when the Common was a 
luxury and pride. It is now a necessity to Boston, and anything that endan- 
gers its preservation is more to be dreaded and opposed as the city grows 
larger. That such a temporary use of it as is proposed does endanger its 
preservation there is no doubt. I hope the petition of the Mechanics' Asso- 
ciation will not be granted. Most sincerely yours, 

Phillips Brooks. 



Appendix A. 17 

[Mr. Smith then read the following letter from Eev. James Freeman 
Clarke : — ] 

Jamaica Plain, Feb. 14, 1877. 

Dear Sir, — I am thoroughly, persistently, unalterably opposed to any 
scheme which looks toward using the Common fur any other purpose tlian 
that of a park for the use of the men, Avomen and children of Boston. Any man 
in the City Government who votes for such a scheme should never be re-elected 
to office. The Common belongs, above all, to the laboring classes ; to those 
who have no country villas to retire to in the summer, no seashore retreats. 
It ought to be kept inviolate for their use ; and the man who proposes to erect 
buildings on it, or to cut off any part of it, should be counted a public enemy. 
Yours, very truly, 

James Freeman Clarke. 

Mr. Smith. — I should like to ask Mr. Hamilton A. Hill, who is one of the 
trustees for another public ground which could be perfectly well used for this 
exhibition, to make a few remarks. 

Statement of Hamilton A. Hill. 

Mr. Hill. — Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: — You may remember that a 
large and enthusiastic meeting was held in Faneuil Hall, in June last, to sup- 
port the broad and enlightened views of the Park Commissioners in reference 
to the laving out of new parks for the people of this metropolis. The key- 
note of that meeting was struck by the chairman, Mr. Joseph S. Roi)es, an 
honored ex-president of the Boston Board of Trade, whom we are all happy 
to see here this afternoon, in his opening remarks, as follows : — 

- "Gentlemen, I was born in Boston, and I well remember the time when 
our cows were pastured on Boston Common ; when the Back Bay was not a 
myth, but a reality, and when at least a portion of the summit of Beacon Hill 
was covered with green fields, on which were seen " raree shows " and travel- 
ling menageries. Since that time our city has grown and swelled, and stretched 
itself north and south, and east and west, striding over one arm of the sea, 
filling up another, swallowing the neighboring towns one by one, taking two 
mouthfuls for Roxbury, and one for Dorchester, and one for Charlestown and 
Brighton together, until it has expanded its population sevenfold, and its area 
almost seventy times seven, within fifty years. Yet there stands Boston Com- 
mon just Avhere and just what it was — no larger, and, thank Heaven ! as yet 
no smaller [loud applause] — than it was fifty years ago." 
Dr. Shurtleff has well said : — 

"Perhaps there is no part of Boston in which its citizens feel more pride 
than in its Common." 

And again : — 

"This tract has been kept under the control of the townsmen themselves, 
who have always been so jealous of their right to it that they have never sur- 
rendered it to the caprice of either town or city officials." 

It is as friends of the Common, Mr. Chairman, that the remonstrants 
against the petition of the Mechanics' Charitable Association appear before 
you to-day. 

Friends of the Common, but not antagonists of the Association referred to, 
whose members we respect, and whose objects and work we would commend, 
if words of commendation were needed from us, which they are not. 

This Association asks for the use of a portion of the Common for its exhibi- 
tion next autumn. We appear here to remonstrate against the granting of 
this request, and beg your attention to the following considerations : — 

First. It is an open question whether the Association can do better than 
to continue to hold its exhibitions where they have been so successfully held 
for many years. 

On looking over the reports of the managers of these exhibitions, it appears 
that this question of change is not a new one. In the report of 1869, signed 
by Mr. Jonas Fitch, we read : — 



18 Appendix A. 

" The question of a change in tiie place of holding the exhibition was a matter 
which caused a great deal of anxious thought, occasioned by the erection of the 
Coliseuui, designed for tlie successful Peace Jubilee, held in our city in June 
last. Many of the friends of our Association, both members and others, inter- 
ested not only in the success of our exhibition, but also zealous in anytliing 
that would ])ronu)te the welfare of our city, were desirous that the exhibition 
should be held in the Coliseum. The whole matter came before the govern- 
ment, who gave it a careful investigation, and, after a lengthy consideration, it 
was decided that it was inexpedient to change the location already assigned. 
The government have had no reason to doubt the wisdom of the 
decision." 

The last exhibition, that of 1874, held in the old place, would seem to have 
been the most successful of all the exhibitions of the Association. In the 
report of the managers, signed by Mr. Nath. Adams, it is said : — 

"It Avas originally designed to close it on Wednesday evening, the 7th of 
October, but the continued interest of the public in the display, and the gen- 
erous offer of the contributors to allow their goods to remain ten days longer 
than at first contemplated, warranted the extension of the time, making the 
longest continuous exhibition under the Association's auspices ever held." 

It is true that, at the exhibition levee of 1874, allusion Avas made in several 
of the speeches to tlie necessity of erecting a suitable building in Avhich the 
Association could hold its exhibitions ; and the announcement was made amid 
applause, that arrangements were in progress for calling upon the merchants 
of Boston and others to aid the Association in such an enterprise. This sup- 
posed necessity, however, as we have seen, did not groAv out of any want of 
success in connection witli the exhibition then just closed, nor was it then pro- 
posed to erect the new building upon the Common. 

That past exhibitions have been successful in a pecuniary point of view is 
evident from tlie financial strength of the Association to-day. The fine build- 
' ing on the corner of Chauncj' and Bedford streets, built and owned by it, and 
valued at $.300,000, is understood to be the substantial result m part, if not alto- 
gether, of them. 

Again, admitting that a change of place is desirable for the future exhibitions 
of the Association, Ave believe that there are other places, equally eligible 
with the site asked for on the Common. 

What is now the parade-ground used to be referred to in old times as " the 
marsh at the bottom of the Connnon." It Avas afterwards made solid, as we 
are told, Avith material of a most miscellaneous character. The probability is 
that piles Avould have to be driven there, for any such building as the Associa- 
tion Avould require. But I do not care to press this point. 

If asked to name other places, I should suggest the ground on Avhich the 
Coliseum stood, and other sites on the Back Bay territory, the land on which 
Mr. Moody's Tabernacle now stands, or the vacant land Avhere Avas Fort Hill. 
This last tract was dedicated by the Legislature, in 18(37, to purposes somcAvhat 
similar to those now under consideration. It was then hoped that a Trade 
Hall, or Manufacturers' Exchange, might be established " for the exposition and 
sale of goods and merchandise, chiefly of New England manufacture." An 
association Avas chartered (Acts 18G7, Chap. 55), and permission was given to 
it to "use and occupy any part of the open territory on Fort Hill so called, 
known as Washington square, for said purposes." I liappen to be one of the 
corporators of this association, and if I can do anytliing toAvards making it 
available for the pro])osed exhibition of 1877, I shall be most ready to do it. 

But, further, Mr. Chairman, whether any other place supposed to be better 
than that Avhere these exhibitions have been hitherto held, can be found or not, 
we insist that, under no circumstances, should the use and occupancy of the 
Connnon be granted to them. 

The President of the Association has said that the qiiestion is, whether there 
shall be an exhibition on the Common, or none at all this year. Of course 
ike Association can join the issue in this Avay, if it so determines, but it seems 
to us that the alternative should be stated in this Avay : Shall there be an ex- 
hibition in 1877, similar to the successful exhibitions of the past, and held 
where they have been held ; or sliall there be one, of a different character and 
on a larger scale, to be held elsewhere, if a better site can be procured? 



Appendix A. 19 

We say, and we believe, that a large majority of the legal voters of Boston 
would say, if they could pass on the question, better, by far, that these popular 
exhibitions continue to be held where they have been, than that they be held 
hereafter on the Common. The officers of the Association are frank enough 
to sa_v, that if their present request is complied with, they will ask for and ex- 
pect to have the use of the Common henceforward during a part of every third 
year. Who in this room doubts that this would naturally and almost inevitably 
lead to the erection of an immense permanent building there, for the frequently 
recurring uses of the Association, for other uses equally wortliy of encourage- 
ment, and, as was so forcibly pointed out at the hearing on Saturday last, for 
still other purposes less worthy of encouragement, against which it would be 
found impracticable to discriminate? Are the people of Boston, Mr. Chair- 
man, prepared for this? Do they desire to see Boston Common covered 
witli public buildings, as is the old City Park in New York? 

I hold in my hand a letter from a distinguished practitioner of this city. Dr. 
Edward H. Clarke, which I am i>crmittedto read, and which forcibly illustrates 
the danger of taking the first folse step in this matter. 

Souie one has suggested that Philadelphia has given us an example, in allow- 
ing the Centennial Exhibition to be held in Fairmount Park, which we may 
well follow, with the Mechanics' Exhibition in this city. Mr. Chairman, the 
City of Philadelphia has indeed set an example, well worthy of imitation by us, 
in her broad and liberal policy with regard to public parks. Let us follow it; 
and when we can point to three or four thousand acres set apart for the health 
and recreation of the people, it will be time enough to consider whether we 
shall allow buildings to be placed on any part of them. 

In this connection I should like to answer the question put by the honorable 
member of the committee (Alderman Robinson), in reference to the exhibi- 
tion in Paris, in 1867, and the use of the Champ de Mars. It is a part of the 
property known as the Ecole Militaire, near where the remains of the great 
Emperor Napoleon are buried. This piece of ground in front of the building 
is the parade-ground for the exercise of the troops, and belongs to the govern- 
ment of France, and not to the people. The people used it when the govern- 
ment was not using it for military purposes, and in 1807 the government set it 
apart for the purpose of the very brilliant exliibition which was held in the 
French capital. Now, one word in regard to the Champs Elysees. The 
first time I walked through it, when a boy, there was not a building upon it ; 
and you had to go beyond the beautiful arch at the end of it to get to the circus 
outside. But one building after another was allowed to go up, until there is a 
series of structures of various kinds, so that now, as you walk from one end to 
the other, you see cafes, concert-rooms, and all sorts of exhibitions ; and all 
the old beauty is gone. Those who have been in Paris recently, and wiio were 
in Paris thirty years ago, know of the change which has come over it. I do 
not think that any one wants to see Boston Common made like the Champs 
Elysees. 

The people of Boston have given unmistakable evidence that they desire 
and expect to have more land than they now enjoy for park purposes, not less. 
As you know, Mr. Chairman, they have so voted, and they have so said in one 
of the most thoroughly representative and enthusiastic meetings lately held in 
Faneuil Hall. They have not been met in this desire as they hoped to be 
met; nothing has yet been done to extend the area of our public grounds, 
now so circumscribed and insufficient. Could you get at the views of our 
fellow-citizens who crowded the meeting referred to, and of thousands who 
were not there, but who sympathized with them, you would hear an earnest 
and emphatic protest against this proposal to deprive them of some of the few 
park privileges which they now possess, and to endanger them all. 

Mr. Chairman, by refusing compliance with the request of the Mechanics' 
Charitable Association, you will raise no difficult questions; you will estab- 
lish no dangerous precedents ; you will imperil no puldic interests. By 
acceding to it, you will take, to say the very best of it, a step of doubtful 
expediency, of doubtful legality, of doubtful right. Permit me, with all 
respect, to commend a safe old maxim to the consideration of the committee : 
Whe7i you are in serious doubt as to what you ought to do, do nothing.. 
[Applause.] 

Mr. Hill read the following 



20 Appendix A. 

Letter from Dr. Edward H. Clarke. 

18 Arlington street, Feb. 11, 1877. 

Dear Sir : — I am liappy to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 
8th inst., informing me of a proposed hearing, by the City Council, of remon- 
strants against the occupancy of a part of the Common, by the Mechanics' 
Charitable Association, and adding, " We should be very glad to receive a 
note from you to be read at the hearing, if you are in sympathy with the 
remonstrants." 

I dare not flatter myself that anything I can say on the matter would exert 
any influence upon the City Council ; but, if it would, I should regard it alike 
as a privilege and a duty to say it, and to ask the city fathers to hesitate 
before granting the permission. Tlic story is told of a Scotchman, whose 
friends remonstrated with him for not setting up a carriage in conformity with 
his wife's request, to whom he replied, " It is not the cost of the carriage I am 
thinking of, but of what goes with it and comes after it." And so with the 
city, and the request of the petitioners, it is not the building on the Conimon 
which is to be thought of, but of what goes with it and will come after it. We 
cannot guard too diligently against the slightest infringement, or possible 
future curtailment of the few open spaces we possess. After the first step, all 
is easy. An attractive, temporary building, the curious treasures of wiiich 
will draw crowds to visit it, would easily pave the way for a permanent 
structure on the site of the temporary one ; and that, for many others. Once 
occupied, the place would be so convenient that it would be a pity not to utilize 
it for similar structures. That parsimony which sees extravagance and 
increased taxation, instead of health, economy and diminished taxation, in 
parks, would grasp the earliest opportunity to confiscate the Common to streets 
and buildings, and would shelter itself behind the flimsiest excuses for doing 
so. I once heard a lively Bostonian expatiate, with earnestness and enthu- 
siasm, on the good time which he prophesied would come, when the useless 
waste of the Common, now a financial burden on the backs of tax-payers, 
would be occupied with handsome streets and stately warehouses, from which 
the City Treasury would draw fabulous sums of money, to the great relief of 
the taxable inhabitants. It is to be hoped that the good sense of the citizens 
of Boston, and of the city government, will prevent the accomplishment of 
any such prophecy as this ; but neither the citizens nor the government can 
be too vigilant in guarding against its possible fulfilment. Eesist the l)egin- 
nings of encroachment and of danger, is a principle as true now as it was 
among the ancients ; as applicable to Boston as to Home. 

I am, very truly yours, 
(Signed) EDW. H. CLAKKE. 

Hamilton A. Hill, Esq. 

Questions answered by Mr Hamilton A. Hill. 

Q. (By Alderman Robinson.) — Did I understand you to say that the 
Champ de Mars and the Champs Elysees are one and the same place? 

A. No, sir; I said that the Champ de Mars lay near to the Hotel des 
Invalides. 

Q. Are they not more than two miles apart? 

A. No, sir; I understand it is part of the military establishment; they are 
in the same neighborhood. The troops are exercised on the Champ de Mars. 
That is the parade ground of the French army. 

Mr. Smith. — Mr. Chairman, as there seems to be a great deal of interest 
felt in the Champ de Mars, I will call Mr. Adams, who was brought up on the 
Champ de Mars, and let him tell how far.it is from the Champs Elyseos and 
the Jardin Mabille. 

Statement of Julius Adams. 

Mr. Adams. — I shall not undertake to say how far the Champ de Jlars is 
from the Champs Elysees, for I do not recollect the exact distance ; but, as 
I understand the Champ de Mars, it is the parade ground of Ecole Militaire, 
or Military School. It has not a tree upon it ; it is simply a flat piece of 



Appendix A. 21 

ground, a large plain, and on that account, when there are any military 
reviews in the city of Paris, they take place there. I recollect seeing the 
review there after the war in Italy, when it was said there were fifty or sixty 
thousand troops on the ground. But the Champ de Mars has no buildings 
upon it ; none have ever been erected there, and I do not think the govern- 
ment would allow any to be erected there, except the exhibition that took 
place there at one time. It has no relation to, or connection with, the Champs 
Elysees. 

Q. (By Alderman Robinson.) — Is it connected with the Hotel des In- 
valides? 

A. I do not recollect whether that has anything to do with it or not. The 
Champs Elysees, as I understand it, is simply a street leading from the Place 
de Concorde to another street whicli goes through the Bois de Boulogne. On 
the borders of that street are erected various buildings. 

In 1857 they erected the exhibition building, which is now allotted to the 
holding of exhibitions of colonial produce, and sometliing of that sort. But 
there is also on the Champs Elysees, or upon the border of it — it can hardly 
be said to be on the Champs Elysees itself, for if the government should 
undertake to erect any buildings upon the Champs Elysees itself they would 
find the people erecting barricades and resisting — a building which is now 
used for little exhibitions, such as the Punch-and-Judy show. 

I must say, Mr. Cliairman, now that I am on my feet, that I oppose the 
placing of this building upon the parade-ground on the Common. I oppose it, 
because it is a bad precedent to establish. 

If this building is erected, there is no reason at all why it should not con- 
tinue there, because if it is once built it may be then urged upon the Board 
of Aldermen that the expense of placing it there has been great; that an ex- 
hibition is to occur there at another time, and therefore the expense of taking 
it down should be dispensed with, and it may continue there forever. 

AVe people who occupy the Common during the summer months — for I 
occasionally go there myself — do decidedly object to having this class of ex- 
hibitions there particularly. It is an exhibition which entails smoke and 
noise. There must be an engine there, and that must have fire and smoke ; 
and if they are to carry out the exhibition as they have heretofore, there must 
be shafting and all the multifarious machinery which go to make up that class 
of buildings. 

I believe that the mechanics of this City of Boston, after having worked 
through the week — when they get work to do — in tlie shop, using the ham- 
mer or attending to machinery, or wliatever else, when the Sabbath comes, or 
if they desire to take recreation in the evening, do not care to be disturbed 
by the noise of machinery ; that they care for rest, and that they do not care 
to be disturbed by the noise heard during the week. Neither do they care to 
smell the smoke, nor hear the noise of the machinery. 

They desire to look upon the green grass, and flowering trees, and hear the 
singing of the birds ; and, further yet, they desire to have some young lady com- 
panion and hear her noise rather than any trip-hammer, or anythmg of that sort. 
I do not know as I can add anything to what has already been said, but I must 
say that it is a surprise to me that the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics' 
Association should come here and propose any such measure. Why, Mr. 
Chairman, I would suppose that the Mechanics' Charitable Association was an 
association for the advancement of the City of Boston. The mechanics of the 
City of Boston desire to preserve that Common ; they always have, and they 
always will. But the Mechanics' Association simply comes here for one pur- 
pose, and that simple purpose is to save money. That is all there is in it ; 
that is all there is of it. But the Common was not established for the pur- 
pose of saving money. We perfectly well understand that all similar pro- 
jects that have come before the City Government in the past would have saved 
money, if carried out. We perfectly well understand that, if the Common 
were divided into building lots and sold, that would pay oflT the public 
debt. But, Mr. Chairman, the City of Boston, the people of Boston, are nof 
going to allow anything of that sort ; and I am surprised that the Board ot 
Aldermen of the City of Boston should give any serious attention to any such 
petition. 



22 AlTENDIX A. 



Statement of Thomas J. Gaegan. 

Mr. Gargan. — We have heard an arfjuiiient from a member of the legal 
profession that is calculated to throw some lisht upon the legal aspect of the 
question ; but I am afraid, after the spectacle we have had at the national 
capital, — fifteen men who are lawyers, and seven on one side and eight on the 
other, as to what is the meaning of the constitution of the country, — that a 
legal opinion on this matter would not have much legal effect. I am opposed 
to the erection of a building on the Common, for this reason : Because I 
believe it to be a public reservation, set apart for public uses. Now, the 
question for this committee to decide is. Is the purpose for which it is asked 
one of those public uses for Avhich the Common was intended? Let lis be just 
and fair to tlie petitioners. No doubt they are respectable, public-spirited men, 
who have taken a great interest in public affsiirs. I know them to be such. 
The petition j)urports to come from the Association; but the worthy president 
has not signed it in behalf of the Association. It is signed l)y Mr. "Joseph F. 
Paul, President," and he says he appears in behalf of the Association and 
the citizens of Boston. Well, it is said it is going to establish a precedent. 
If it is a good precedent, establish it ; if it is a bad precedent, it ought not to 
be established. Well, now, what do they ask? They ask, as has been stated, 
for four or five acres of a public reservation, ground that has been set apart 
as a breathing spot, where the humblest people may go and get air. It may 
be charged here that most of the men who have appeared before the committee 
in opposition are men of respectaliility and capital. So much more ought they 
to be entitled to credit. They are not here for their own comfort and con- 
venience. They are here that others may be benefited ; and I commend them 
for their interest in the masses of the people. But I come here to speak, in a 
measure, for tlie mass of the people, who ask that this building be not put there. 
Oh, but it is said that in times past, there have been flower-shows, circuses and 
menageries on that ground. 

If they had never been there, the gentlemen asking for this would not have 
had a bad precedent to quote ; and because that has been done, they come and 
ask for it for their own use. They say they only want a temporary building ; 
that there are to be no foundations, no piles driven, and that they will not 
interfere with the trees and shrubbery. Now, what is a Mechanics' Exhibition? 
It is an exhil)ition where machinery of all kinds is shown ; it is but a large 
work-shop. How do they propose to put a boiler there and an engine to run 
the machinery, without a foundation? But if they put it there Avithout a foun- 
dation, you have gone one step further. You consented to a tent, and if you 
consent to a building without a foundation, the next step is to put a building 
there with a foundation. But it is said this building is to be taken away at the 
end of the exhibition, and put up in sections elsewhere. The fact has been 
quoted that a building was put on the Champs Elysees, in front of the Hotel 
des Invalides. But liow was it put there? It was put there by the Emperor 
of the French, in violation of law, for a temporary purpose ; and it remains 
there to-day. That is the way to establish a dangerous precedent in the City 
of Boston. Here we have in the centre of the City of Boston a park of forty 
acres, and j'ou cannot ])ut yourselves upon record in favor of this petition. 
We have made too many bad records in the State and nation ; so let us move 
cautiouslJ^ I know that no gentleman here can be influenced by the fact that 
his action here may cost him his re-election to the city government. Tliat is 
a small matter. But I do believe there is not a man on this committee who 
will place himself upon record, no matter what may be the result, but believes 
that tlie verdict of his fellow-citizens will be against such action. 

Let us not establish this bad precedent simply for the jturpose of keeping 
the balance of trade in our favor. It is said it is going to bring trade to Bos- 
ton. Why, that was the argument used for the first jubilee, and for the second 
one. Perhaps some of the merchants of Boston can tell, by their cost, how 
much trade they got by the Peace Jubilee. It is, perhaps, a good argument 
to use to bring trade. And I have no doubt many gentlemen would like to 
have that large piece of ground leased, for itwcmld pay one-fourth of the taxes 
assessed upon the city. But we should not encroach iipon the riglits of tliose 
people who have no other place to go. You may say it is all sentiment. 
There must be sentiment. It makes history. The sentiment of our citizens 



Appendix A. , 23 

saved the Old South Church, and erected Bunker Hill Monument. We must 
have places for recrcfttion in order to produce the best condition of health. 
Let me ask you, gentlemen, if there is no other consideration than business? 
Do not record your verdict in favor of desecrating the Common. 

Statement of Dr. Hodges. 

Dr. Hodges. — I can add little, if anything, to what has been so well and 
emphatically said by the remonstrants, and certainly it would be very com- 
monplace for me to repeat the arguments made in this room by so many minds 
in regard to the healthful and sanitary influence of parks and commons. But 
I should be glad to call your attention to the fact that few persons, except 
physicians, can realize to what extent the Common is used by the invalids, by 
thousands, and by aged people, for their brief and short walks. This propo- 
sition to plant a lai-ge building upon the parade ground, apart from the general 
objection that might be urged against it, closes a very large portion of the 
entrances to the Common, if not to the Public Garden, and therefore it restricts 
the use of the Common for one of its most important purposes. Then, again, 
sir, it is also with difficulty that the Common is kept in the wholesome and salu- 
brious condition in which it must be in order to promote the health of those 
who resort to it for pleasure and health. It costs a great deal to keep it clean 
and tidy, as it must be, with those ends in view. A very considerable body of 
police are stationed there during the whole week to prevent any one from 
sitting down on the grass, to prevent any one from trespassing on the green 
sod, in order that it may be kept in condition to have it of some use when that 
privilege is granted to the citizens of Boston. A number of people will resort 
to this exhibition ; the employes and exhibitors alone will constitute a large 
body of people. Many of the visitors will come from the city, but probably 
the larger portion of them will come from the country ; they will bring their 
lunches and food with them, and we shall certainly have a result that is dan- 
gerous to the public health, or to the health of the people who feel compelled 
to resort to it, and have resorted to it for so many years for their very little 
airing. I only wish to emphasize, from this point of view, the objections 
made to this use of the Common. I certainly join heartily with everybody 
else who has objected. But this proposition comes more pertinently from a 
physician than from some one else, and I trust that the remonstrants will be 
heard, and their petition granted. 

Statement of Richard Olney. 

Mr. Olnet. — Mr. Chairman : — I shall detain the committee but a few 
moments ; but so much has been said and well said, I am not certain but that I 
ought not to trouble the committee at all. I do desire to say, however, that so 
far as I know, the remonstrants — or so far as I represent any of them — do 
not come here to undervalue the i^Mechanics' Association or the objects for 
which it was incorporated ; they did not come here to deny its usefulness. They 
fully appreciate the beneficence of its aims and objects ; and I, for one, — and 
I know the remonstrants believe with me, — do not pretend to impute to the 
officers of the Association, who have made the application that we are consider- 
ing, anything but the best possible motives. On the other hand, I realize and 
believe the remonstrants generally believe that this petition is made and 
pressed in entire good faith, because the petitioners believe that the laudable 
objects of the Association will be promoted by the granting of it, and that the 
public interest requires that it be granted. 

The remonstrants, I believe, will concede that. While doing it, however, 
they do insist that the petition is a mistake ; they do insist that the petitioners 
have been misled by their excessive zeal for the particular objects of the Asso- 
ciation, and have thus overlooked other objects of at least equal importance. 
And I desire to say that I believe that their grounds of objection are, in the first 
place, that it would be unwise to grant it under any circumstances ; and, in the 
next place, it is not within the province of the city government to grant the 
petition, if it were convinced that it would be wise to do so. Now comes the 
first point, — the impolicy of granting the petition — I shall dwell on it only a 
single moment. 



24 Appendix A. 

The obvious and leading considerations affect ng it have been so forcibly 
presented already tliat if anj' others remain to be statt'd, there are plenty of 
gentlemen here to do more ample justice to them than I can. I will only say 
that the petition applies for the exclusive use, by these petitioners, of four 
acres of the Common during four months of that season of the year when it 
is most frequented and enjoyed ; to deface the most ornamental part of the 
city for so long a time by a structure which, however well adapted to its par- 
ticular pur})oses, cannot be anything but a blotch and disfigurement in that 
place, and, with its surroundings, to deprive the boys and the youths of their 
play-ground : to take from three hundred and fifty thousand people one-tenth 
of the forty acres which, for one-fourth of the year, is their only refuge from 
the heats of inidsummer, and but for which they would scarcely know there 
are such things as trees and leaves and flowers. 

To do this, we have no other exigency except the request of a corporation 
which, however worthy its aims and objects, is not an ol)ject of charity, and is 
wealthy enougli to carry on its exhibition just wiiere it pleases. You will see 
that tlie consequence of doing this seems to be in the highest degree unwise, 
and, so far as a large class of the population is concerned, an absolute infringe- 
ment of tlieir rights ; and it is to be borne in mind, as has already been ob- 
served here, that those most interested against this petition are not represented 
here, except by proxy ; they are those whose daily lal)or must earn each day's 
bread ; who have not gardens and play-grounds and lawns of their own ; who 
cannot take wings and go to the seashore in the dog-days, and to whom this 
public Common gives the only glimpse of the bloom of summer, and that it 
is their onl}- chance for fresh air. It is this class of our population whose 
interests are especially at stake now and involved by this petition, and who 
cannot come here to this City Hall and attend this hearing; and whom, there- 
fore, it becomes the city fathers to protect witli a special vigilance, becavise of 
their enforced silence. But I pass over that, and come to the other considera- 
tion : Is it within your province, as representing the city government, to do 
what the petition has asked? I confess that I do not see where you get or 
derive any such power. 

Tlie clause of the city charter which forbids your leasing the Common, or 
any part of it, has already been quoted, and it may be well contended that the 
exclusive occupation of the Common for so long a time by a private corpora- 
tion is in direct conflict with the expr(?ss provision of the city charter. Cer- 
tainly that provision is a mere nullity if it merely means that you cannot give 
to them a formal lease, but by the vote of two branches you may give them 
exclusive rights in the Common which they can have in a lease. If that is 
the result of this provision of the city charter, it had better be expunged at 
once, for it is a cheat and a delusion. But I do not care to pursue it further. 
It Avill have to be decided by the courts of law. 

But there is another thing : In dealing with this Common, the city govern- 
ment is acting as the trustees of the public, the terms of whose trust have been 
definitely settled by universal acquiescence for a great and indefinite length of 
time. The city holds the Common not merely for tlie general public benefit, 
but for the benefit of the public in a prescribed and particular way. It might 
be shown to be of the greatest possible benefit that the city should cover the 
whole Common with shops and buildings, occupied l)y tenants at will, and that 
the rent received should be applied to the reduction of the taxes of the poor. 
Suppose that were demonstrated to be the best possible thing for the public to 
do with the Common ; would any man contend that the city has power to dis- 
pose of it in that way? Of course no one will ; and the reason is that the city 
holds the Common not on a general trust to benefit the poor in any way it may 
see fit, but in a prescribed and particular trust, and to l)enefit the public in a 
prescribed and particular way ; and that precise and particular trust is that it 
shall always be kept open as a pul)lic Conunon and public ground for the use, 
comfort and enjoyment of all the inhabitants. The care and custody of the 
Common is committed, l)y the city charter, to the City Council; not that it 
may deviatt' from, but that it may carry out, the precise and particular trust 
which I have cited ; that it may see that it is kept up, and that it is not en- 
croached or depredated upon or put to any other use. When, therefore, the 
petitioners ask you to shut out the public from a large part of the Common, to 
roof it in and give the exclusive use of it for a long time to a private corpora- 



Appendix A. 25 

tion, it is simply asking you to commit a bieach of the trust upon which the 
city holds the Common. And there is another matter : If you should think 
that the jiublic good Avould be best promoted for a given length of time, by 
allowing the Mechanics' Association to use it for the purpose for which they 
want it, you are bound to say that it is not competent in the premises for you 
to do the thing they want, for the city government are not authorized to pro- 
mote the public good in that way. 

It holds the Common upon a strict trust for a precise and particular pur- 
pose, and it has not the liberty to sanction the use of the Common against the 
uses for which the Common is devoted in accordance with that particular 
trust. I am taking more time than I meant or expected to, and I will only 
say this in conclusion : That it is of the utmost importance that no precedent 
should be established of the kind which would be established by granting this 
petition. Once let an application of this sort succeed, and you open the doors 
to similar applications without number for all sorts of purposes, and you will 
never know when or where you will be able to stop. You may think that you, 
as members of the present city government, can deal with such an application 
for the appropriation of the Common, and that the Common will be safe in 
your hands; but what about your successors? What guaranty of their ac- 
tion? What secui-ity can you give that future city governments will not 
parcel off the ground and use the Common for purposes which you and all fair- 
minded men regard as improper? The only safety is in not setting the exam- 
ple ; in not making the precedent ; in taking the true and just and distinct 
ground that this Common is held for a certain prescribed and definite purpose, 
and that it is not to be devoted to any other use. 

Statement of Dk. J. Collin Warren. 

Dr. Warren. — I want to say something against this project, and add my 
testimony to tliat of Dr. Hodges, of tlie great advantage which the Common is 
to people in want of health. But there are sanitary considerations to be 
thought of besides the one wliich he alluded to. The Conmion is a very valua- 
ble part of the city as a purifier of the atmospliere of the city. The grass and 
the leaves of the trees, I need hardly tell you, h^ve a sanitary influence wliich 
is of no small amount. Tlie gases whicli escape from the manufactories and 
liouses are very deleterious, and they are aflPected by the oxygen from such 
large spaces as the Common. As you all know, we have a high death-rate in 
this city, and are laboring under sanitarj' disadvantages. You will remember 
that a few j^ears ago there was a large volume of impure air exhaled which 
had a deleterious effect. For that purpose the Common should be kept in as 
high a degree of cultivation as possible. The grass should be kept at the 
maximum, and should not be allowed to lie around on the ground. It was, 
therefore, with great satisfaction that I witnessed, last summer, the alteration 
of the parade ground from a barren waste to a large green lawn, exhaling 
pure gases, which added largely to the sanitary effect produced by the Common. 
Now, sir, if we put a large building, as is advocated to-day, — the size of which 
appalled me when I first heard of it, — on this beautiful lawn, wliich we, at 
considerable expense, have succeeded in perfecting, what will be the result ? 
A gentlemen has alluded to the fact that there will be no foundations. But, 
sir, tliere will not only have to be foundations for the machinery, but privies, 
and trenches to take away the refuse of all kinds, which will have to be dis- 
posed of. Many of you will recollect — unfortunately in your own families — 
the effects of the bad drainage at tlie Centennial in Philadelphia. It was due 
to the unusual restraint placed upon the system of disposing of the sewage 
from that part of the city, and it is a well-known fact that disease was bred by 
tlie imperfect arrangements. It was less generally dwelt upon in tliis country 
than in other cimntries. Some of the English journals I have seen laid great 
stress upon the imperfect arrangements for drainage. We have not succeeded 
in carrying out sanitary measures to the same extent that they have in Eng- 
land ; hence, they are surprised. It appears, therefore, to-dny, that the drain- 
age of this city is not so jicrfect as to insure the air of the Common beyond 
infection. You will remember when the greater portion of the parade ground 
was a sheet of water. It has hardly disappeared ; but the ground has been 
gradually made more solid, until last year it was brought to a state of perfection 



26 Appendix A. 

It is uncertain whetlicr the tlrainnse on sueli a tract of land as that could all be 
carried off, and the consequence would be a gradual infection of this tract 
of land, which, I think, would be deleterious. I have not alluded to the fears 
that some others have expressed, of tlie gradual extermination of the Common. 
I think the precedent, from a sanitary point of view, will be an exceedingly 
dangerous one. 

ilr. Smith. — I should like to call upon ex-Aldernian Brooks, who was a 
member of the City Council at the time of the Coliseum, and, as I understand 
it, he was upon tlie committee to consider that question. I understand that 
they received some advice from the city solicitor, and I should like to ask 
him about it. 



Statement of ex-Alderman Wm. F. Brooks. 

Mr. Brooks. — I don't know — I would say right here, that I had the 
honor to serve upon the Committee on Common three years, wiiile a member 
of the government, being associated with the present Chairman of the com- 
mittee — I hardly know what I can say in this matier that hasn't already been 
said. There have been so many points raised here, I don't know what I can 
add. I think it was in 1871 wlien the petition or request came to that commit- 
tee for the purpose of erecting temporary buildings on the Common, fronting 
Tremont street. At that time I tliink tlie city solicitor, — I am quite certain 
that he gave it as his opinion tliat the committee could not exercise that right 
to allow any temporary building to be placed upon the Common. While I re- 
spect and appreciate this Association as much as any gentleman can who has 
asked for this privilege, I certainly oppose it. I think there are other grounds 
in the City of Boston that they could occupy as well as this. Now, Mr. Chair- 
man, in order to erect and place this building upon the ground tliere must nec- 
essarily be a very large amount of teaming off and on the Comtuon; and the 
cutting of the ground up, all j'ou gentlemen well know, must be very severe 
on the Common. A great many heavy pieces of machinery are to be carted 
to and from this building, providing this permit is granted. There is another 
thing that the committee have done since I left it: they have cut off the play- 
ground from the boys. When it could not be granted for the boys, it should 
not be granted for this purpose at least. They have a prior right over this 
institution to the use of this Common, as it was set apart, in my judgment; 
and I hope you will not grant this permit; in other words, that you will give 
the petitioners leave to witlidraw. I can conceive that if we open the door, as 
has been said here, — if you do so, they will come and make the same request 
at the expiration of every three years, not only for tiiis purpose, but, we might 
say, for many others which have been enumerated here to-nigiit. A sugges- 
tion has been made that they ndght purchase the building now occupied by 
Mr. .Moody and Mr. Sankey. It has been proposed that that building might 
be purchased for this purpose, and perhaps they may want that building con- 
tinued a longer time than this institution might be able to wait. I hope their 
good work will find a use for this building, so that they will not want to let it 
for such a purpose. I certainly look upon this, in every sense of the word, 
as a request that should not, under any circumstances, be granted for the pur- 
pose for which it is asked. 

Statement of Prof. W. Everett. 

Prof. Everett. — I do not know whether, strictly speaking, I have 
anj'- right to appear in these premises, literal or moral, as I am not at 
present a citizen of Boston, although I was a Latin School boy, have been 
defeated as a candidate for the School Committee, served on a Suffolk 
Grand Jury, and paid taxes in this city for some years. But, as we were 
reminded by Mr. Jolm C. Ropes, that on one occasion his Honor the Mayor of 
Newburyport was allowed to come here and try to prove to the citizens of 
Boston that it was for the interests of commerce that Coluiubus avenue should 
be extended to Park-street church, perhaps, by parity of precedent, you will 
allow a citizen of Cambridge to enter a protest against a committee of the 
City Council's trying to take away from the neighbors of Boston one of the 



Appendix A. 27 

greatest satisfactions in living in her neighborhood. We who live in the adjoin- 
ing towns, which have not had the privilege of being annexed to Boston, but, 
like myself, do enjoy the privilege of living in Cambridge and paying taxes 
three dollars more on a thousand than do the citizens of Boston, — we who are 
obliged to come into Boston, from time to time, on business, — we, sir, feel 
that we can go through the streets of Boston on business, from one end to 
another, and enjoy the comparison with the streets of other cities where we 
live, or have lived, and we appreciate the fact that right in the middle of 
Boston is this green, open space of forty-five acres, which relieves our vehicles 
and our feet, and makes our business easier and lighter. 

We experience a more solid satistiiction in transacting business in Boston 
than we do in any other city. We are glad to be near Boston, and we are 
glad of it on account of the Common. Its trees and its turf are actual physi- 
cal benefits, and we are better and stronger because of having this place to 
avail ourselves of. 

I was obliged to remain in Cambridge all last summer. I did not go to the 
Centennial ; and I feel myself rather an aristocrat on that account. I was 
obliged to come to Boston all through the hot weather, and do business ; and I 
felt that the heat in Boston was relieved by the fact that I was so near the 
Common, and that the bracing influence of the Common was helping me. It 
was said, in the course of the hearing, the other night, that those who live 
near the Common were most interested in this question. On the contrary, that 
is not the case, for those who live near the Common are mostly rich men, with 
a hundred places to which they can go for relief during the hot season. It is 
those who do not live near the Common that most feel its attractiveness. 
Those who live in other towns, where there is less free space than in Boston, 
come into Boston when the rich residents around the Common are gone, and 
enjoy the privileges that the Common gives them ; still more those who live 
in the less airy streets of the city proper ; and they feel that it is almost as 
good as living on Beacon or Boylston street, if they have this place to go to. 

But I am almost inclined to think that, independent of any opinion of their 
own, the assessors liave fancied that the residents near the Common have a 
fee simple in it, for they have taxed the residences on Beacon and Park streets 
fiir higher on that account, which shows that in their eyes the fact of being 
near the Common has a money value. If you are going to change the charac- 
ter of the Connnon, those houses in Beacon street will lose their value, their 
existing valuation will never stand, and the city will lose a large sum in taxes. 
When it was said that those who live near the Common think they own the fee 
simple in it, I think those words must have been put in to give a legal air to 
the sentence, because "fee simple " is a legal term ; and it sounds well in such 
a phrase. If the gentleman who said that is bound to use the terms of 
English law, he had better look back and see what Common means in the old 
law of real estate in England ; he had better see what rights the inhabitants 
had in a place that was Common land. He would see that in the most lawless 
time in English history, the lords of the manor were slow to deprive the people 
of their rights in a Common. For Common is as well-known a term as any, 
in English law ; as fee simjtle or ienant in tail after possibility of issue exti?ict. 
When somewhat of the old English independence had departed, the enclosure 
acts began to abridge the English people of their rights of Common, from year 
to year, and they have been often recognized as among the greatest acts of 
oppression which the aristocracy put upon the people. 

I do not want to consider, with reference to the erection of buildings in 
Paris, whether the Champ de Mars is precisely the same thing as Boston 
Common. I do not care to consider whether a place which occupies many 
hundred acres is the same as a place of forty-five acres ; whether a place bare 
of grass and trees upon the outskirts of Paris is the same as a planted park in 
the middle of Boston ; whether an open space on the edge of a city which has 
the Bois de Boulogne, the Bqis de Vincennes, the Park Monceaux, the Tuil- 
eries Gardens and the Champs Elysees, can be classed as the peer of Boston 
Common. It is enough to say that whatever has been done by the Imperial 
Government of Paris is no precedent for the City of Boston. If we are going 
to repeat Paris in Boston, remember it is as easy to build up a Commune in 
Boston as in Paris ; and if the rights of the poor men are to be encroached 
upon in Boston, the next thing you will be having barricades in the streets. 



28 Appendix A 

Such hii^h-hanflod policy is a thins? alien to the sjenius of American institu- 
tions. The i)rincipal fear which I have now in the way "f tyranny is the 
tyranny of corporations, of which we have so many in this country, aiid which 
are fast takini? awfiy the people's rights. 

I nii<jht say, Mr. Chairman, I do not want to arsue this matter, because, in 
fact, I do not know how to argue it. I simply know tliis petition is disliked 
by a body of men who have a right to say so without giving reasons. 

The whole number of the citizens of Boston have a legal and a moral right 
in the Common. It belongs to them, and when you come and propose that a 
limited numl)er of persons shall take away some of that right, it does not make 
any difference whether it be for good reasons or not; wliether the object be a 
good and honorable, or a bad one. It is enough that we do not want the thing 
to be taken away. Suppose a man came to me and proposed that some 
theatricals should be performed in my church. He might urge that the old 
prejudices against such things were dying out ; that in many places in Europe 
plays had been acted in clmrches and cathedrals ; that the play is a moral 
play, showing the progress of drunkeuness ; he might say that many religious 
ceremonies differ but little in style from theatricals, and that the cause of 
religion would be promoted by having theatricals in the church. I should say 
that theatricals were never meant for a church, and that the church is not 
meant for a theatre ; and until you have got the consent of every parishioner 
you have no right to turn the church to any other purposes than those it was 
built for. This Common is meant for a Common ; for an open space, and it 
is not meant for buildings. It belongs to the whole City of Boston, and until 
every citizen has given up his portion of that Common, or until you have had 
his part set off to him by an enclosure act, you have no right to invade it. 
Suppose yoii go down to the neighborhood of North street, or Hanover street, 
and cleared away some of those buildings now used for trifling, or even infa- 
mous purposes ; suppose you lay it waste there, and then put up this building 
of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics' Association. It would lie near 
the horse-cars, deep Avater, the freight and passenger stations of four railroads, 
and be admirably situated for carrying on a fair. Moreover, you would clear 
away buildings for which there is no use now. People would say that ground 
is property; it is occupied; you have no right to take it, except by act of the 
Legislature ; no matter if tlie buildings are not used, you have no right to 
tear them down and occupy the land, even for a good purpose. Sir, the 
Common is property ; the Common is occupied. The fact that there are no 
buildings on it does not make it unoccupied. The purpose of the Common is 
that it shall be open, and while it is open it is occupied ; and when it is shut 
up its purpose is invaded. Our free air and light and trees are things that 
require the whole space and more. It is not only occupied, but it is much 
more than occupied ; it is crowded. It is acknowledged that we need more 
open spaces. The purpose of the Common is but eight-ninths fulfilled if you 
give this Association five acres of it ; and where you put a building up tliere 
for a limited number of persons, you are just as much carrying out an illegal 
measure as if you were going down to the north end to tear down the houses 
and put up a building for this fair. 

No, sir, it will not do to say we will give you an equivalent, and that it will 
be of more benefit to the citizens of Boston to have the fair on the Common. 
The citizens of Boston have a right to use the Common as it is. Nay, sir, 
they have got the right of way over it, and I am strongly inclined to think it 
will be invading the right of way to put a building there," because it will cross 
the path that many use, and have used for twenty years in going from Beacon 
street to Boylston street ; and if you put up a building covering four acres of 
land you are trenching on easements that can be enforced in the courts of law. 
But, be that as it may, we have this Common, and we are satisfied with it as 
it is ; we do not want it in any other form. Allusion has been made to taking 
away the J)oys' play-ground. I am sorry that it should have been done, but 
it had to be done, because the boy's playing games invaded the rights of 
citizens who wished to walk across the Common ; and therefore we took away 
the rights of a limited number in order that the rights of a majority on the 
Common might be maintained. Just so, if you put up this building you take 
away the rights of a majority of the citizens of Boston in that part of the 
Common. 



Appendix A. 29 

Two centuries ago, sir, when it was proposed to weaken some of the legal 
securities of the church of Enghind, it was promised that her members should 
have an equivalent. On which Lord Halifax remarked, " My nose is probably 
the ugliest nose in England ; but I have got it ; it is attached to my face, and I 
can use it. No man shall cut it off on promise of an equivalent." 

One word more : Suppose it were proposed to build in the middle of 
Chestnut-Hill reservoir and sink foundations so as to take out two or three 
acres of the water, I suppose it would be objected to because that place is 
set aside for a water-reservoir. The Common is your air-reservoir, sir. It is 
the reservoir of fresh air that the City of Boston needs to purify itself, as Dr. 
Hodges and Dr. Warren have told you, from the pestilent airs that come out 
of a great city. You cannot afford to fill up or cut out the least part of it. 
Gentlemen, I thank you for the great patience with whicli you have heard a 
citizen of Cambridge. Harvard College and Cambridge feel that they depend 
for life upon the City of Boston ; and Cambridge, having but a paltry seven 
acres of park, they cannot afford to have any of the forty-five in Boston 
Common taken away. 

Mr. Smith. — How long is it the pleasure of the committee to go on? 

The Chairman. — The Chair would state that it is his pleasure to sit here 
until church time to-morrow. 

Mr. Sjiith. — I wanted to know whether to go on and finish the hearing to- 
night, because I have a large number of gentlemen who would like to be ex- 
amined ; but I thought perhaps I might weary the committee, as I notice that 
the member who took such an interest in the Champs Elysees has retired to 
the smoking-room. However, we will go on if the committee desire. 

The Chairman. — The chair will inquire of the committee. 

Mr. Smith. — I have a large number waiting here to express themselves, 
and I have no doubt that a large number who wish to express their views have 
been obliged to leave. It is probable that we could prolong this hearing for 
three or four weeks, to speak moderately, if you will go on. 

The Chairman. — The Chair would ask the counsel if bethinks any amount 
of evidence, such as we have heard this afternoon, would have any effect 
upon the committee? 

Mr. Smith. — I think myself it would have great effect upon me, because 
you are the trustees of the people, and I think the wishes of those for whom 
you act are of very great importance to you. As a matter of law, cumulative 
evidence is objectionable, and the court can restrain it if it goes too far. But 
I must say that if you are seeking the wishes of the people- of Boston in this 
matter, until every citizen has had his say before you, I think the evidence 
would not be cumulative. 

The Chairman. — The object of the committee is to get all the evidence 
that they can ; but your intimation that you could could continue the hearing 
three or four weeks — 

Mr. Smith. — I did not intend that. I propose to call two or three witnesses 
who have examined the Common with regard to the land, and the changes of 
the surface necessary in order to allow the erection of such a building. I 
supposed that you were getting tired, and that there was no necessity for fin- 
ishing it to-night. 

The Chairman. — The Chair sees several gentlemen here whom he should 
be glad to hear. I can only answer for myself, but I am willing to remain 
till 12 o'clock. I should be glad to hear any evidence which either side may 
be pleased to call. 

Mr. Smith. — I have no right to dictate to them what evidence they shall or 
shall not put in, and I think the committee, iafter consultation, will try to 
accommodate the convenience of the witnesses to a certain extent. I do not 
wish to stop now, because I live as near here as they do. 



Statement of Joseph S. Ropes. 

Mr. Ropes. — Mr. Chairman, I came here, like my friend, Mr. Guild, 
entirely without preparation of any kind ; but I am most heartily in sympathy 
with the views of those who have spoken this afternoon, and it would be very 
unfair to such an intelligent and patient committee to repeat indefinitely the 



30 Appendix A. 

arguments and facts and views already reiterated with so much force ; and so I 
say to the committee, that I endorse what has been said l)y Mr. Guild, Mr. Hill, 
Mr. Olney and others. It has been said by one of the gentlemen who spoke, 
that this is a trust which is virtually in the hands of the city government, 
and wliich cannot be stepped over and violated without an act of the Legisla- 
ture. Tliat, I verily believe, Mr. Chairman ; and it so happened that I had 
an opportunity to test the probable views of the Legislature in that case. I 
had the honor to represent one of the largest wards of Boston two j'ears ago 
in the House of Representatives. Owing to tlie fear that something would be 
done to curtail the Common by the City of Boston, a bill was introduced by 
the Judiciary Committee, which prohibited (as has been mentioned here this 
afternoon) any such action on the part of any city or town in Massachusetts 
without a prior vote of the citizens, and I think — though I am not at this 
present moment positive — it requires a two-thirds vote. That bill was 
opposed with great energy by those who, I have no doubt, were interested in 
such movements as the one under consideration. One of the most energetic 
members from Boston went against it ; but, sir, he was alone against it. The 
country members said. What, cui'tail Boston Common ! We want to see Boston 
Common when we come here. And they voted overwhelmingly in favor of the 
bill, and against the desecration of this place. 

It happened many years ago that I was coming home in a coach along 
with a New Yorker who seemed to think it beneath his dignity to converse with 
a Bostonian ; but when he came along to the Common he suddenly burst out, 
saying to me, " That Common is a great place ;" and I think he mentally com- 
pared it with that miserable park they have in New York, which is covered 
with palaces and all its value as a park has been taken away. 

Now I do not believe you will ever get an Act of the Legislature to curtail 
Boston Common, for the country members will go against it to the end. 

This is a trust, as was said tliis evening. It is not a trust for the City of 
Boston, as such, but a trust for the poor, for those who have no other guardian 
to look after their welfare, but yourselves ; and it is at the peril of your con- 
science that you will go against the stipulations of this trust. 

In regard to taking a public park for a temporary building such as is pro- 
posed, it might be worthy of serious consideration if the parks we have were 
like the summer gardens in St. Petersburg, the Champ de Mars in Paris, or 
parks of Berlin, or like Fairmount Park in Philadelphia or Central Park in 
New York ; and if we had parks of two or three thousand acres, it would be 
easy to set aside five or ten acres for such a purpose. But to set off four of 
our forty-five acres in such a way tliat those sweet breezes which came from the 
western hills'will be impregnated with the dust and smoke from the machinery, 
so the whole place will become a "jakes," as our English friends call it, 
I say the idea is not to be tolerated. I say that you are the trustees for every 
poor woman who has the right to taste those refreshing breezes. You are the 
trustees of every man who goes there with his wife and children instead of 
going to the grog-shop, where evil habits will^be fostered. If you take away 
this right you will do it at the peril of your own conscience, and it will be a 
responsibility which you cannot easily evade. 

To call those who oppose this movement obstructionists reminds me of a 
gentleman in Parliament who cried out, " We will not have the laws of Old 
England changed." Let us change the phraseology and cry out, " We will not 
have Boston Common meddled with." 

Mr. Smith. Mr. Chairman, I have half-a-dozen names here of gentle- 
men who have said they were willing to say something, but I have been advised 
by gentlemen you know very well, and I think it is wise, after the intimation 
of the committee, that this sort of comulative evidence will have no sort of 
infiuence. We will rest our case, reserving the right to reply to the other 
side. 



Appendix A. 31 



THE CASE FOR THE PETITIONERS. 

Statement of Charles W. Slack. 

Mr. Slack. — After listening patiently, without one word of interruption for 
four long hours and more, to the other side, I rise at this late hour to submit 
a few practical suggestions. We do not propose to add anything to what was 
offered tiie other afternoon in regard to our case ; but we do think there has 
been a great deal of exaggeration on the other side ; that our object is not, as 
has been represented by them, to get an advantage without rendering an 
equivalent; and that instead of receiving the censure of the community, we 
should receive the thanks of all who have the well-being of this city at heart. 

The Association which I represent has been a tenant of the City of Boston 
for thirty years. Its members are not a set of predatory individuals, designing 
to monopolize any of the public parks, or to run a street through a part of 
either of them so as to ultimately destroy the whole. We simply want to 
have the use, for a short period, of a small portion of a large tract of unused 
land, here in the city, so that we may have an exhibition which shall be of 
material benefit to our citizens, and tend to the development .of the mechanical 
arts. We come here not without the advice and support of numerous friends. 
We do not desire to delude any one. We have something of character and 
reputation in this matter, which may be designated our credentials, to present 
our case on behalf of the Cliaritable Mechanics' Association. One gentleman, 
whom I greatly respect, and who, though his hair is white with age, is only 
four years my senior in the Association, thinks that no vote has been passed 
■"by the Association by which we are authorized to come to the city government 
and make this request. Now, to present our case intelligently and in our own 
way — and that is the reason we did not give our evidence to the other side — ■ 
we are willing to read every vote passed by our Association, and present all 
the information that we have, from first to last, without concealment or 
suppression of a single point that it is proper to give. I will begin by reading 
these votes, and if there is a doubt about their accuracy we will fortify them 
by the records themselves. Here is the initiatory proceeding: — 

"On the third day of January, 1877, at the annual meeting of the Associa- 
tion, it was — 

" Voted, That the Board of Government be requested to consider the 
expediency of holding an exhibition during the present year ; and, if in favor 
of the enterprise, to call a meeting of the Association at an early day." 

Thus we were authorized by the Association to proceed in this manner. 
Was this unusual? On the contrary, we have proceeded in the same way for 
forty years ; and if our venerable friend (who has gone out) had taken a little 
advice from head-quarters he would have found that this has been the 
invariable initial step as the time approached for each succeeding exhibition ; 
that is, the question was referred by vote of the Association to the govern- 
ment ; and if the government thought it wise to proceed, it so reported, and 
took the sense of the Association. Very well. Secondly, when the govern- 
ment came together, on the 8th of January, five days afterwards, it was — 

" Voted, That a comnaittee be appointed to obtain all information in their 
power with regard to the probability of obtaining a part of the Common upon 
which to hold an exhibition." 

So it seems we started out with the one idea of an exhibition on the Com- 
mon, because this matter of the locality of the exhibition had been talked over. 
We had canvassed all the lots about Boston, and had come to the conclusion 
that it was utterly impossible to go anywhere else than to the Common. And 
here I want to say tiiat there never was any intention, on the part of my 
associates or of myself, to suggest the Common, or no exhibition as tlie alterna- 
tive threat, as some newspaper correspondents have suggested. The appli- 
cation for the Common was made only because it was utterly impossible to find 
a suitable place elsewhere. 



32 Appendix A. 

A gcntltMiian said, the other day, tliere were plenty of places ; and to-day my 
friend, Mr. Hill, stated that we can go to the Old Fort Hill lot, and he has 
given testimony showing that we can have 40,000 square feet of space. Does 
the gentleman know that our last exhibition covered 48,000 square feet of space 
in the buildings we then occupied — 8,000 more than this lot? Yet in the very 
report that my friend quoted from, he will find that we liad to turn away nearly 
half as many goods that arrived at the halls, very many of wliicli came long 
distances over the country ; and, moreover, we were not able to properly ex- 
hibit half the machinery that we did take in. When we consider all the other 
ai-ticles in tlie exhibition, furniture, fancy goods, shoes and leather, carriages, 
cutlery, jewelry, -etc., — how can we in character say to exhibitors that they shall 
have all requisite space on the gentleman's lot, when we have less room than we 
had at the last exhibition? We might ask, " How do you know that the store- 
keepers in the vicinity will let us go to the Fort Hill lot without remonstrance 
from them? They do not want to be deprived of the air or light they get 
from that open space, an}' more than those who complain of using tlie Com- 
mon." I want to show my friend that he did not get the right paragraph, 
when he quoted from our last official report. On the seventh page President 
Adams says : — 

"3d. The absolute necessity of more room for exhibitors, and of more 
convenient surroundings for the throngs of visitors. It is only too evident 
we have outgrown the hospitable accommodations which, for twelve exhibitions, 
Faneuil and Quincy Halls have offered us. When it is impossilile for us to 
take in the goods wliich we have solicited, often after they have been trans- 
ported long distances, and when, as at this exliibition, we have turned away 
fully one-third, if not one-half, as many articles of machinery, alone, as we 
have accepted, the argument seems to us closed as to the necessity of more 
commodious halls, where no deserving inventor or exhibitor will be disap- 
pointed." 

I will not read farther ; but it is all in the same direction, and I am sorry 
the gentleman did not chance to sec it. 

Now, if we cannot get into that Fort Hill area, where shall we go? A 
gentleman says we can go on the Back Bay; that there is "room and verge 
enough." Suppose we do go there; it cannot be to the Coliseum lot. It was 
a broad plain once ; since tlie Coliseum was taken down it has been covered 
with forty and sixty foot streets, eight or ten feet higher than the abutting 
land. If we go there we cannot drive into the building and put in the ma- 
chinery we. desire. It would be down in a hole, and even foot visitors would 
approach it by thirty-three steps from the railroad bridge. We could possibly 
go up to Newton street, cross the bridge, and drive away round : but we do not 
want to do that, for we are no better off when we get on to the land as to enter- 
ing the building. Besides, it is not a place where the public will go more than 
once to attend an exhibition. But suppose we go to the outer Back Bay. Is 
there a gentleman living in that vicinity who will say that it is a fit place? The 
whole atmosphere is filled with dust; on a windy day it is like a sirocco on the 
desert of Sahara. Would anj' gentleman put nice cloths there on exhibition? 
Would any manufiicturer put his fine fabrics in such a place? Would any 
gentleman owning a work of art allow it to be put there, with the liability to 
injury from the sand sifting through the crevices of the building? Besides, 
consider the danger of the thing. Everybody' who lives in that vicinity knows 
that there are constant and violent winds playing across the Back Bay in Sep- 
tember and October, sweeping down from the hills beyond into that valley. 
We may well doubt if a building so exposed as this would be could stand the 
severe strain of the wind. The first nor the second Coliseum did not do so ; 
is there more reason to suppose this would fare better? 

No, gentlemen, we cannot go there. There is not another suitable place, 
aside from the Common, unless we go out into the suburbs, four or five miles 
away . 

The question then arises, is this display of any value to the citizens of Bos- 
ton? Is this exhibition of any advantage to mechanical and manufacturing 
development? If it is not, we ought not to have it. We have had twelve 
similar displays — exhibitions of the various phases of art, skill, invention and 
discovery — all winning the warmest encomiums ; and in a conversation to-day 
with that illustrious inventor of the carpet-loom, Mr. Erastus B. Bigelow, he 



Appendix A. 33 

said these series of exhibitions had been productive of most advantageous re- 
sults to Boston. Otlier experts will agree with him. Do gentlemen consider 
that seven-eighths of the prosperity of Boston, to-day, depends upon the me- 
chanical industry of our people? We want to see once more the result of the 
great mechanical industry of New England. Everything of this kind that 
promotes and fosters that industry should be favored. That is what we ask 
by our application for three or four acres of unoccupied ground. 

I alluded a week ago to the little incident of Mr. Ball's statue of Webster ; 
it is only one in a hundred illustrations that might be given. Twenty-two 
years ago Mr. Ball put into our fair a model, which Mr. Burnham of New 
York, seeing, accepted, and at once gave Mr. Ball an order to execute life-size 
to decorate New York city. By reason of the approbation given Art by our 
Association, Mr. Ball was encouraged to design the statue which has been 
thus honored in the bronze statue of the great statesman, which now adorns 
the great Central Park, and is equally Mr. Ball's and our Association's award. 

I need not cite the illustrations given by Mr. Kennard, of a gentleman who 
spent a fortnight or three weeks at our last exhibition, who made up a large 
album of every circular and fly-sheet that had reference to the fair or its goods, 
which he carried home. What he saw here and learned from this collection 
led him to inquire about the articles produced, and the final result was several 
invoices of cotton goods from our manufacturies, in preference to those of 
Manchester, England, where before he had purchased — all from a stranger's 
interest manifested in our exhibition three years ago. 

Is this an enterprise to be encouraged in the City of Boston? In the light 
of these facts, I say Yes ; and every man who has a pride in the business of 
Boston says Yes. We are all looking, or should be, to the development of 
our resources ; we are all hoping for the revival of business and for better 
mercantile times. If we can bring five hundred thousand or a million visitors 
here, they will each leave something behind. If they do not leave behind 
money, they will grateful thanks for the privilege of the exhibition. Grati- 
tude and knowledge may in time be turned into desirable orders. So that, 
from the lowest of motives, that of individual benefit, we have consideration 
for the exhibition. But, higher than this, all our witnesses have testified to 
the elevating influence of such exhibitions. 

But it has been objected that our building will curb the airs of heaven and 
qualify the purity of the atmosphere ! Do the winds of heaven come to us in 
horizontal lines? Do they not rather blow where they list? And will 
gentlemen seriously argue that we, by putting up a building five hundred feet 
long, are to shut out the breezes from the Common? The suggestion is too 
absurd ! Everybody here nearly has said that the Common has forty-five 
acres. Why clip off four acres to enhance the relative size of our building? 
Will they not have the candor to say, what everybody knows, that it has 
forty-nine acres, and that all we proijose to utilize is probably not more than 
three — one less than themselves curtailed from the side of the Common. 
The idea of our building being 1,200 feet long was never suggested by a 
member of the Association. It is purely an exaggeration, like so many 
others, to fill the public mind with apprehension of great danger to tlie Com- 
mon. 

Mr. Chairman, we will give any guaranty or security that may be asked, 
that we will conform literally to the rules that may be prescribed for us. We 
put it in our request, "under such terms and conditions as the Committee on 
Common and Squares may determine." If you require it, I think we will 
give bonds for the faithful performance of the duties enjoined of us. But we 
are old tenants of the city, and I think we may claim we never violated an 
obligation. 

A medical gentleman has come in and said that our exhibition would tend 
to spread disease ; but he forgets that there is running through this parade 
ground of the Common one of the largest sewers of the city, extending from 
Boylston to Beacon street. We shall have wash-bowls, running water, and 
other conveniences for ladies and gentlemen, all connected with this 
sewer, by which all filth will at once be conveyed to tide-water. Then, 
in answer to the objection that parties will bring in tlieir lunches and scatter 
the debris on the Common, we shall have luncli and dining-rooms within the 
building, and notliing of the kind suggested will be promoted by us. 



34 Appendix A. . 

One of the reasons why we wish the Common is, because it will be in the 
control of the city. We desire to avoid the erection of stands and booths, and 
have the surronndin^s as tasteful and l)eautiful as they were within the 
enclosure in I'hiladelphia. Wc do not purpose to erect "barracks," as some 
have intimated ; but a building of iron and glass, or wood and glass, as may ' 
be determined, tasteful and beautiful in itself; and we will take it away when 
the time is up. We propose that ladies shall find it an attractive resort, 
remaining all day, and taking their lunches in their own room inside the 
building. We certainly are not to have anything disagreeable at that time 
upon or around the Common. 

We have heard a good deal this afternoon about the rights of the poor ; 
the spot we ask has not a seat upon it, not a shade-tree of any growth upon it. 
Until last fall it was a dry, barren spot, unused except by the ball-players. 
It was then sown to oats and grass. We will cover it with flooring, and when 
we take away the boards there will be the product of last fall's tillage, with- 
out detriment or diminution. Gentlemen must have known the barren condi- 
tion of this tract ; and yet it has gone into the newspapers that the Common 
was to be invaded, leaving the impression that its greensAvard and pleasant 
paths and umbrageous trees were all to be denied to the citizens while this 
exhibition was being held. Nothing coukl be more fallacious. 

But, gentlemen, if there is any other association that can do as much for 
the credit of our city as will come through this exhibition, we will cheerfully 
waive all rights we may have as citizens, and get out of the way of the opposi- 
tion. But please remember we have had the privilege of furnishing this exhi- 
bition for forty years, and we take a proper pride in doing it, and in doing it 
well. We have outgrown the old halls. Had we not, how can we now go 
down there, when we have surrendered the lease of Quincy Hall, which we 
carried for thirty years, and for which we paid )$9,000 during the later years of 
our occupancy, and then, in addition, gave $3,000 to tiie sub-tenants, at each 
exhibition, to remove their goods for a few months. We abandoned that hall 
in utter despair of ever again making the locality available for our purposes. 
And yet, with this large expense which I have just mentioned, I read in one of 
the newspapers this morning — and as a newspaper man I was ashamed of the 
want of intelligence it manifests — that this Association wanted to go upon the 
Common to save ground-rent! Why, sir, cannot our purveyors of knowledge 
rise to a broader conception than that of why men and associations have public 
spirit? The largest tax that might be exacted would be a mere bagatelle. 
We would gladly pay a ground-rent if you could name a place where we can 
go. But it cannot be done. We have exhausted tlie canvass ; we have 
searched every spot, and we frankly say that we are iinable to find a proper 
locality within any reasonable distance. 

But why does our Association want to assume all this labor, and risk, and 
anxiety for full success ? Because it is enjoined upon us in the charter 
obtained from the Legislature, and it is laudable and creditable in itself. Sec- 
tion 3 of our charter reads that " the annual income of said corporati(m shall 
only be employed for the purpose of relieving the distresses of unfortunate 
mechanics and their families, to promote inventions ai^d improvements in the 
mechanic arts, by granting premiums for said inventions and improvements ; 
and to assist young mechanics with loans of money." There is our incentive ; 
and, moreover, it is the custom, now well established, to periodically make the 
exhibit of New England industry, as an encouragement to all inventors, arti- 
ficers and artists. Such honorable precedents it is our duty to maintain. Not 
a cent of the receipts goes into the private pocket of any one ; all who work 
in the cause do so without salary. The onij^ person in the Association who 
draws pay is the Secretarj^, who receives a small annual stipend for his clerical 
labor. Everything else done in our Association as a free-will offering for 
charity, the development of mechanical and manufacturing arts, and the assist- 
ance of young mechanics by loans of money, as the charter reciuires. Now, 
if there is in the City of Boston, or elsewhere, an Association which ought to 
have the good-will of the conununity it is one like this, whch has this broad, 
generous scope in its purpose, and which can be exercised only for the renown 
of this city, in which it is located. 

We have been reminded that our petition is favored by men who live out of 



Appendix A. 35 

town in summer, where they have free air, and hence they selfishly ask to 
have this exhibition on Boston Common. 

Our petition speaks for itself: " We, citizens and business men of Bos- 
ton." It does not say " citizens " alone, but "business men " as well, who 
come here from various localities, and labor and toil, adding to the aggregate 
wealth and honor of the town. Men who have been in business here for forty 
and fifty years join in this request. Shall we say such men have no share in 
the public welfare? It does seem to me that we have a few men at least in 
this community who have no selfish interest in this purpose. If the object 
itself is laudable, they cannot refuse to aid the application, unless it is shown 
that we will do violence to the City of Boston ; and that, I fancy, has not 
been, and cannot be, done, however much men may appose. 

You, Mr. Chairman, are at the head of the Committee on Common and 
Squares ; you can direct, under our petition, the shape, size, construction and 
duration of that building. You and your associates of the Aldermen are the 
accredited representatives of the liO,000 citizens of Boston, more or less, who 
voted for you at the last election. Had they confidence in your judgment, or 
did they think you were without balance, to be moved hither and thither with 
every popular gust? I will not belittle your position by suggesting that your 
constituents can be gratified by a swerving from a straight line of right and 
propriety, though there be an organized opposition to such a claim as this. 

As I look over the affairs of this city, I feel that we live in a community 
conspicuous for general intelligence, great opportunities, and high desires ; 
and it seems to me the duty of every man, whether retired on an ample for- 
tune, or in active business, so to lift up this ancient domain, that it shall be 
the pride of all the cities of our country. 

Massachusetts is indeed the seed-planter of the nation. It is because we 
have gone forward in our long career, fostering all new thought, favoring in- 
ventions and development, and giving constant examples of those attributes 
that make up the glory of a people. If this exhibition is not to be a beneficial 
one ; if it is not salutary in its infiuence ; if its long line of precedents has not 
been creditable, — then I am not the one to stand here and ask you to bestow 
upon it any favor. But if, on the contrary, as you well know, we are a body 
that has added renown to our cit}^ then I ask, that, despite all opposition, you 
give a lenient consideration to the very modest request that we make, so 
entirely unprejudicial to the comfort or interest of a single citizen. 

We have listened this afternoon to the eloquence of an Everett. I hold in 
my hand the oration delivered by the elder Everett at the close of the exhibi- 
tion of the Association in 1837 ; and I want to quote from it, because the 
father speaks again to the son. At the close of that beautiful exhibition, 
Edward Everett (then in the Governor's chair) came down to the hall and 
delivered an oration, in which he said : — 

" Let me say, then, Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Mechanics' Associa- 
tion, PERSEVERE. Do auv ask what you have done, and what you are doing 
for the public good, send them to your exhibition rooms, and let them see the 
walls of the temple of American Liberty fitly covered with the products of 
American art. And while they gaze with admiration on these creations of the 
mechanical arts of the country, bid them remember that they are the produc- 
tions of a people whose fathers were told by the British ministry that they_ 
should not manufacture a hob-nail ! Does any one ask in disdain for the great 
names which have illustrated the mechanic arts, tell him of Arkwright and 
Watt, of Franklin, of Whitney and Fulton, whose memory will dwell in the 
grateful recollections of posterity, when the titled and laurelled destroyers of 
' mankind shall be remembered only with detestation. Mechanics of America, 
respect your caUing, respect yourselves. The cause of human improvement 
has no firmer or more powerful friends. In the great Temple of Nature, 
whose foundation is the earth, — whose pillars are the eternal hills, — whose 
roof is the star-lit sky, — whose organ-tones are the whispering breeze and the 
sounding storm, — whose architect is God, — there is no ministry more sacred 
than that of the intelligent mechanic ! " 

Gentlemen, ".Persevere!" is the watchword of our Association to-night, 
even as it was enjoined upon us forty years ago by the eloquent Everett. 

I have come here to-day, Mr. Chairman, as an humble representative of that 
class of men so glowingly pictured by the great orator. As I look at the 



36 Appendix A, 

stately warehouses and extensive workshops of our city, remembering who 
reared tlieni and who filled them, — who have been our past leading citizens 
and who now occupy their places, — I always feel that if we can give to the 
youtli of the city, for a mere nominal sum, incentives to repeat the triumphs of 
the fatliers, Avith even added excellence, we are conferring the highest benefit 
upon tlie community in wliich we live ; for it is to their intelligence and pub- 
lic spirit we must look for all the mercantile and manufacturing advance that 
is to come hereafter. Our exhibitions furnish such incentives ; and if in fur- 
nishing them we do not deprive any citizen of a single right, it is our duty to 
press forward. We imjilant in the minds of ingenuous youth a hope for some- 
thing better in tliis life than mere personal enjoyment. We encourage them 
to labor for their fellows, for the interests of civilization, for the permanent 
good of their race. If victory, under such advantages, does not come to their 
banners, it is only because the conditions have been untavorable, or because 
they have not seized the opportunity that was placed within their grasp. But 
we believe the chance oflered will be hailed by thousands. 

In saying what I have, Mr. Chairman, I have tried to dissipate some of the 
objections to tlie placing of our exhibition on the Common, which, as we think, 
ought not to be opposed, because it is solely for the ultimate benefit of the 
city. We have with us Mr. John Cummings, a well-known merchant of our 
city, one of the Board of Finance of the Centennial Exposition. He knows all 
about such exhilntions and their influence upon trade. I should like to have 
him address the committee. 

Statement of John Cummings. 

I hardly know what I can say, in addition to what has been said by the vice- 
president of the Association, in regard to refuting tlie objections urged here 
tills afternoon to our exhibition. One thing I can say, — I believe this exliil)i- 
tion sliould be held on Boston Common, and I lielieve that no barm will come 
to any individual, rich or poor; no one will be deprived of one moment's 
enjoyment of all the pleasures that the Common has afforded, or can afford, 
or will afiibrd. The portion of the Common tliat we expect is not frequently 
occupied. For the last two or three years mj' business in that part of tlie city 
has called me across the Common several times every week, and except as 
it was occupied by boys playing ball, I have never seen but very few persons 
occupying that ground. Tlie leaves upon tiie trees and the grass upon tlie 
lawns will furnisii as much sanitary influence as ever; no smoke that will be 
noticed, in ni} opinion, will come from the engine we shall erect there; no 
noise tbat we make tliere will trouble any one a quarter as much as the sound 
of the boys' voices while they have been playing there all these years. 

Now, what will be the effect of this exhibition, if we have it? We have 
been told that it is to be near upon the shadow < f the Centennial Exhibi- 
tion. I know it is near upon the shadow of that exhibition, and it is because 
it is tliat I believe it will be more useful; and I believe its influence will be 
wider and deeper and better. There is a desire to have an exliibition among 
tiie mechanics of our city; and sucli a suggestion would not exist but for the 
Centennial ; and such a desire would fade or die out in three years from now 
witliout tills exhibition. 

The influence of the Centennial Exhibition in a moral or educational way 
imiwessed me very much more strongly than it would if I had not spent 
nearly all of last summer in Philadelphia. I can sny that any one who went to 
that exhibition as a visitor, to feast his eyes upon what was displayed there, 
would not be struck, as 1 was, -with the moral and educational influence of that 
exhibition. I was connected witli the government of that exhibition, and 
know soiuewliat of the conduct of it ; and I know that while a large police 
forct' continued (nine hundred were employed on the ground), I was in the 
buildings nearly four days in the week, and often remained on the ground all 
night, and I never saw a rude act, never saw one ot the guard called to exer- 
cise his authority, scarcely ever heard a rude word. That fact, that you could 
have a gathering of sometimes 100,000, and sometimes 200,000, with so little 
rudeness, impressed me very forcibly. 

The president of the Committee on Finance said to me, " No man can come 
into this exliibition unless lie makes up his mind without the grounds that he 



Appendix A. 37 

is going to be wicked or bad ; no man can come here and be stimulated to it 
within the grounds ; unless he determined to be wicked before he entered, the 
very atmosphere would prevent him." 

Now, I believe the influence of this exhibition — if we shall have it, for I 
believe you will give us the right to have it tiiere, unless the law prevents it 
— upon the poor classes of the community will be greater than any other 
influence throughout the State of Massachusetts; that during the two months 
of the exhibition there will be a more moral influence growing out of it than 
from any other institution during any six months of the year. 

I believe, Mr. Chairman, that another very important education came from 
the Philadelphia exhihition, and will come from this, namely, the appreciation 
of integrity in manufactures. I believe that here in New England we have 
been trying to produce for ninety-five cents wliat ought to cost one dollar, and 
I believe that the exhibition will iiave a tendency to change that. I believe 
to-day that in that exliibition what we had of integrity was depreciated. 
Everything tending to cheap articles was depreciated, and not recognized as 
wortli attention. I believe that every manufacturer — I know that in my line 
of business every manufacturer — who went to that exhibition, went away 
with the determination to make his own productions better. 

Tiiere is an incident in this connection that I should like to mention. A 
gentleman from a distant county liad an exhibition of leather there that was 
really notable for his factory ; and, in speaking of it to one of the Commis- 
sioners, he said he had learned more from this exhibition than he knew before, 
and that hereafter his leather will be a great deal better. 

I believe that if we hold this exhibition upon the Common, — and unless we 
hold it upon the Common I do not know where we can hold it, — I believe the 
interests of Massachusetts will be more promoted than it can be in any way, 
even by expending a million dollars. 



Statement of Everett Torret. 

Mr. Torret. — The hour is late, and I did not expect to be called upon to 
make any remarks ; but as our worthy friend Slack has called me up, I 
will relate an incident to show the moral eflTect of the exhibition of useful 
inventions which grew out of the Meclianics' Fair in 1869. A man came here 
from Ohio with a derrick whicli he could not exhibit, but he showed a model 
of it, and induced parties to go to Ohio and look at it. Being supported by 
two wooden guys from the rear of tlie wharf, it was worked witli two guys 
instead of four, so that the boom of the derrick would extend over the hatch- 
way of the vessel and raise large packages and swing them on the wliarf. 
Before that derrick, which now stands on every first-class wharf, was invented, 
we paid .$1.50 a day to a stevedore for discharging cargoes. After the derrick 
was used we paid .$1.00 a day for doing it, and it reduced the expense thirty- 
three per cent. The old method of dischariiing was to have sheers with cap- 
tions on the wharf, and the stevedores would pull them up witliout, every man 
swearing all he could. It was a perfect bedlam of oaths. When we put up 
the derrick the stevedores did not like it; but when they got to working it, 
there was no swearing. Why? Because there was nothing to swear about. 
Tlie derrick did the work on the forecastle, elevated it and landed it 120 feet 
distant on tlie wharf. By means of tliat derrick we were enabled to compete 
with New York, which we could not do before, and we almost doubled our 
business in that line the next year after that derrick was erected ; and we 
have continued to hold our own in that capacity with New York, Philadelphia 
and Baltimore. 

This is what is called a brace derrick ; tlie stevedores call it the religious 
derrick. 

Now, in regard to the precedent. The citizens of Boston have always 
encouraged useful inventions and scientific arts ; and if they do not continue 
to do so, they will establish the precedent of taking a backward step, which 
I do not think the City of Boston is prepared to do, or will do. 



38 Appendix A. 

Statement of William Satward. 

Mr. Saywari). — I do not know tliat I have anytliing to offer that will be of 
any value. All lias been said that can be said in this case. It appears to be 
a very " coninion " question, and I believe that those who have been here this 
afternoon understand it very well. I was somewhat surprised at tlie course 
of those wlio are sup])()sed to be opponents of the granting of permission to 
put a building upon the Common. It rather appeared to me that they came 
here to argue the necessity for parks in Boston, rather than oppose the grant- 
ing of the jietition. I, sir, for one, am in favor of larger parks, and hope 
that we shall have them some day. I do not propose to say a single word to 
detain this committee here any longer, for I feel that everything has been 
Siiid that need be said. The only way to satisfy the opponents that this exhi- 
bition will be lieneficial is to let us try it; and if at the end of the time the 
opponents say this is not a legitimate and proper use to put the Common to, 
then we shall not ask for it again. 



Closing Argument of Charles W. Slack for the Petitionees. 

Mr Slack. — Three military gentlemen have claimed that their commands 
could not perform their evolutions if this exhibition were given on the Com- 
mon. I do not know what the fence was put up there for, except to protect 
the grass ; and if so, then the militia could not have gone there any way, be- 
cause the whole ground is enclosed and subdivided with fences. We were 
there this morning, and found that one-half of the jiarade ground had been 
fenced in towards Beacon street, so that I do not believe a battalion of four 
companies could go tlirough their evolutions on the ground as it is to-day — I 
mean the area that is left. 

In regard to establishing a precedent, it seems to me that in a strict sense 
the precedent is with that portion of the public who want to utilize the Com- 
mon. It cannot be gainsaid that in 1840 we had political meetings there, with 
log-cabins, wooden barracks, etc. In 1842 we were familiar witii stands being 
put upon the Common for Washingtonian mass meetings. In 1852 the rail- 
road jubilee occupied several acres, with a board tloor and interminable tables, 
which were covered with a tent, which was maintained for a week. In 1856 
there was a horticultural exhibition, with a splendid display of fruits and 
flowers; also with aboard floor, covering several acres. In 18G9 the much- 
quoted Coliseum was allowed to go there. Gentlemen have spoken about the 
" indiiinant public sentiment" which drove them off — which, by the way, 
was the deliberate act of the executive committee of that enterprise, who saw 
some advantages in going down where they did instead of remaining on the 
Common. In 1875 there was the rhododendron exhibition. As Mr. Hale re- 
marked on the last occasion, these repeated instances of the occupancy of the 
Common show that it was the common custom of the people to go there. Now 
if this request is granted, we shall stand in the line of invarial)le precedent. 
The "entering wedge" does not come in here at all. We have had this 
favor ever since Boston was a cit}'. I mentioned, the other day, the prece- 
dents in regard to our own society, and I iiave now a few statistics to show what 
we have done on the Common. 

The Mechanic Association invaded the Common for a similar purpose in the 
year 1818. On the morning of July 4th tlie government proceeded thence to 
witness an exhibition of ciisks, the work of apprentices. Ten were exhibited, 
and three premiums were awarded. Mayor Ben. Russell, of the " Columbian 
Centinel," was then ])resi(K'nt. Similar exhibitions of articles, made by appren- 
tices and otlicrs, followed in 1819 and 1820, also on the morning of tlie Fourth 
of July. In 1837, when Samuel A. Eliot was mayor, the Association was 
given leave by the Aldermen to hold an exhibition on the Common. Some of 
the exhibitors then tlunight their goods would be injured (as I have suggested 
they would be on the Back Bay) from dust by being placed in a temporary 
building, and said if the exhibition were held in a hall tliey would contribute. 
The government changed its mind, and went to P"'aneuil Hall, and tiiis was the 
occasion of the first considerable exhibition. In 1847 another precedent was 
established. A permission to display fireworks by the Association, for the 



Appendix A. 39 

pur])ose of award, required the fencing in of a considerable portion of the 
Common, the erection of stands, etc. Tliese instances all show that, while 
the general objection is made that we are establishing a precedent, the fact is, 
on the contrary, that tlie precedent lias been long established, and has become 
a rule ; tliat the " entering wedge " has been going in all the time, and the 
Common is not yet split ! 

Alderman Slade. — Do you recollect whether any of the gentlemen in the 
City Government, who voted for these permissions, were re-elected to office 
again ? 

Mr. Slack. — I have observed that things of this kind do not turn the polit- 
ical scale ; and in Boston we can justify any act that is right in itself. 

Now, sir, we are justly proud of our Association; and we can mention 
many eminent men among our living honorary members who deem it a matter 
of pride also to be recognized as a part of our body, — such men as Alexander 
H. Bullock, Nathaniel P. Banks, Robert B. Forbes, George S. Hillard, Wil- 
liam Perkins, — whose son I saw here a litle while ago — 

Mr. Smith. — As a remonstrant. 

Mr. Slack. — True, unfortunately for his father's reputation. Alexander 
H. Rice, Samuel H. Walley, Emory Washburn, Marshall P. Wilder, Robert 
C. Winthrop, and many others that I might name. I think we are in good 
company when we present our Association. 

Now, about the legal aspects of the case. We have a number of legal 
gentleman here to testify, but it is pretty late, and I will only say that if the 
Electoral Commission could not decide who is president without a division of 
eight to seven, I fear legally we shall not settle this question, thoiigh we call 
them all. In City Hall matters we go by the law as interpreted by John P. 
Healy. If he does not give good law, of course the City Government will 
make a change in their legal adviser. If he says we can go on the Common, 
we will go, with tlie committee's ))ermission; and if he says not, we will " fold 
our tents like the Arabs, and as silently steal away." 

The Chairman. — Have you looked elsewhere in Boston for a proper 
locality for the exhibition? 

Mr. Slack. — We have looked everywhere we possibly could. We have 
made a study of this thing night and day, and some of us have ridden around 
looking up localities. The other day it was suggested that we might go down 
on Commonwealth avenue. This morning the president and myself went 
down there to see whether it was practicable. We found the iron fence 
erected as far west as Fairfield street ; two sections below, to Hereford street, 
trees are set out. Beyond that are 1,500 or 1,800 feet, I should say, to the 
roadway from Chester Park to the Milldam, on which laborers were at work. 
It could not be expected we could hold the exhibition on that bleak territory. 
As I have already said, we could not put goods in there, because of the dam- 
age from the dust. So with pictures and statuary. Half the value of the exhi- 
bition would be lost to us, and we should have a great building on our hands 
without the facilities to pay for it. Is that the enterprise that Boston wants to 
promote? If gentlemen, in their freedom of utterance, will tell us where we 
can put up a building, and get contributors to send goods, and cover the out- 
lay, we will accept it. But I think, Mr. Chairman, if the object is in itselt 
meritorious, we might be allowed to put our building on the parade ground, 
especially if gentlemen in the opposition cannot name another site for us. 

The Chairman. — Have you looked at the lot owned by the city, which 
was bought for a site for the Latin School ? 

Mr. Slack. — Yes, sir ; and the objection to that is this : The ground is eight 
or ten feet below the surrounding streets ; houses occupy a corner of it ; 
passage-ways traverse it; and a portion is occupied with the stone foundation 
of an .abandoned building. And I will here say a word about the Moody and 
Sankey building. It is not generally known that the gentleman who owns 
the land upon which it stands insists that the building shall be taken down the 
moment it is vacated. So we have been informed. We could not hire it, 
tlierefore ; and if we could, it is not a quarter large enough; the lot is not 
suitable; we cannot drive into it; and we cannot raise the floor, setting it 
upon stilts, to hold our heavy goods. Go where we may, off" the Common, we 
have to deal with many different parties, and the moment we should suggest 
our object, they would all put a fabulous price upon their grounds ; and then 



40 Appendix A. 

we cotild not control the surronndinors ; we shoiiltl liave all sorts of side-shows 
near us, wliicli we want to avoid. We thought we would go and look at the 
two squares on the Neck; and if tliere were not trees on them full grown we 
would ask for those squares, connecting them by a bridge. Tliose squares 
could now only be utilized by covering them with glass, as in the case of the 
Crystal Palace of London. We do not want to go to the back side of Parker's 
Hill; nor do we want to go out to West Koxbury. We want the exhibition 
at our doors, where ladies and gentlemen can go repeatedly, and find every 
convenience, and spend the day in studying tlie beauties of the exliibition. 
We promise you that we will have everytliing orderly, neat and comely ; and 
when we are tlirough, gentlemen, if we shall not have fulfilled every promise, 
and made a beautiful exhibition for the pride of the City of Boston, tlien 
never more give confidence to any member of the Massachusetts Charitable 
Mechanic Association ! 

Now, Mr. Paul, if you please. 



Statement of Joseph F. Paul. 

I would not say a single word were it not for the misrepresentations made 
by the people on the other side ; and, I believe, purposely. It is said we want 
the Common to save $40,000 land rent. The gentleman nnist liave been wise 
who made tliat remark. It is not true. I think gentlemen should speak of 
what they know. I had looked over the land. I think I know what kind of a 
piece of land we want on which to put a building. I have ridden over the 
Back Bay, but I have not been to see the gentleman's lot on Fort Hill, because 
we want a great deal more land than there is there, and must have it if we 
give a display; therefore, I made the statement empliatically that, if we are to 
have a fair at all, we must have it on the Common. 

Gentlemen say we cannot have the Common, because it is not legal to use 
it tlnis. Well, I invited two or three legal gentlemen to come here to-day, and 
they came and stayed until they were tired out ; if they liad got a chance, they 
would liave spoken in favor of the petition — showing that there are various 
opinions, and that legal gentlemen are not all on one side at this time. 

We knew people would oppose this project. I know that a good many 
people oppose having this fair this fall ; and we knew that people were afraid 
to let us have the Common for the reasons set forth this afternoon. One 
learned gentleman has said that it is going to interfere with the fresh air. I was 
not aware that such a building as we are to put up would take so much air 
from Boston Common, You will find just as many bugbears as this against 
everytliing out of the ordinary course ; and you will find gentlemen from 
Camliridge, perhajis, opposing anything that means prosperity and develop- 
ment to Boston. But there was one good thing after all, and that was to hear 
men basing their opposition on the fact that they were the best friends of the 
working men ! Who ever knew it before? Why, sir, one of the main objects 
of having this fair on the Common is to benefit tlie poor. 

The Association's petition is here by proper authority ; the vote has been 
read, and it is hardly necessary for me to refer to it- I do not know what 
class of citizens the gentleman was brought up with who questions our authority 
to act here ; hut he must have taken my associates and myself as trying to get 
sometliing out of the city without giving an equivalent for it. Before tlie first 
step in this matter was "taken, we endeavored to ascertain whether we could 
find a place to hold the fair. We found no suitable place, and so we petitioned 
for the Common. We did not lake legal advice, — common sense does as 
well as law sometimes. One gentleman says I signed the petition as " Presi- 
dent," without saying of what. — the commencement of the petition tells that, 
— and he infers from that, that I do not represent anybody ! I gave the 
gentleman credit for some sense. 

Mr. Slack. — It was the petition of the government of the Mass.Tchusctts 
Charitable Mechanic Association, and was signed, "Joseph F. Paul, Presi- 
dent." 

Mr. Paul. — I signed it, as I thought people of ordinary intelligence would 
understand it. 

I do not say I am any more interested in this matter than any other man 



Appendix A. 41 

in the City of Boston. I know that it will take three or four months of my 
time this year ; but I never undertake anything without carrying it out the 
best I can. I don't care what somebody else is going to do this year or next, 
I endeavor to act for the interests of the Charitable Mechanic Association as 
near as I can ; and one of my duties is to see if we can hold a fair. If the 
government find that they cannot hold a fair, they will certainly be relieved of 
a great amount of labor, anxiety and care. If the fair is not held this fall, I 
can say that it will probably not be for two or three years ; for it will not be 
held at the time of the Paris fair. As Mr. Cummings said, this is one of the 
best times for it. We shall have a great many goods that were at the Phila- 
delphia fair, and that are going to Paris. One gentleman, who was to have 
been here, has a case costing $25,000, and it will go into our fair, filled 
with goods. Perhaps Mr. Bigelow will show us a carpet-loom in running order, 
and I believe there is not one person in a thousand who has ever seen a 
carpet-loom in this country. Perliaps gentlemen may say they don't want to 
see it, but I do ; and a great many others do. There are some people who 
recognize sucli fairs as instructors. I mentioned Mr. Bigelow because he is 
seconding our efforts. We have to depend, to advocate our cause, upon men 
working with their hands and their brains, and have to express their views in 
this homely way, because they have not time to write them out, as many of 
our opponents have done. 

Mr. Hill. — My friend, Mr. Paul, speaks of a tract of land that I had to 
let. I wish to say that I happen to be one of the stockholders, and have only 
a small interest. I should be only too happy to give my influence for the 
Association to hold its exhibition on that lot. 

Mr. Paul. — I wish to say that I did not call Mr. Hill's name. 

Mr. Smith. — How many square feet are there in Faneuil and Quincy 
halls? 

Mr. Slack. — About 48,000 feet. 

Mr. Paul. — I wish to correct one statement that has been made. We 
never have thought of having a building over 600 feet long and 200 feet wide. 
That is tlie largest building talked of in the Board of Government. 

The Chairman. — Have you any objection to telling the names of the legal 
gentlemen who were to have been here? 

Mr. Paul. — Mr. Nathan Morse, Mr. Hyde, and another — I have forgotten 
his name. 

Mr. Bryant. — Their testimony would have been to the efficacy of this 
exhibition as a moral show? That is what I understand the lawyers testified 
to the last time. 

Mr. Paul. — I do not know whether they thought it was moral or immoral. 

Mr. Bryant. — I should like to ask if they have given a legal opinion as to 
the right of the City Council to grant this permit to the Association? 

Mr. Paul. — No, sir. We took tlie City Solicitor's opinion. 

Mr. Slack. — We have the City Solicitor's opinion. 

Mr. Smith. — Has such an opinion been given by the City Solicitor? 

Mr. Slack. — We had lieard that this question is to be carried up to the 
Supreme Court in case the City Council, in their wisdom, should grant this 
petition ; that it is to be fought. We accept the condition ; we understand what 
they intend to do. And yet we say, let us have the tract of ground. 



Questions answered by Mr. Slack. 

Q. (By the Chairman.) — There seems to be an impression among some 
gentlemen that this square on Fort Hill is sufficiently large to answer your 
purposes. The committee wish to know distinctly what is the smallest 
amount of space that you will accept to put the building upon? 

A. We will take as mucli or as little as we can get. 

Q. Would you be satisfied with fifty or sixty thousand feet? 

A. No, sir. It would be useless to delude our contributors with so small 
a space. And here is another point that I wish to bring to the gentlemen's 
attention. It is known that we covered one of the highways when we put up 
the building at Faneuil and Quincy Halls. There are 10,000 legal questions 
that might be raised because of the occupancy of that street. We supposed 



42 Appendix A. 

we had space enough; we said to our contributors, bring on your goods and 
we will find room for them. They came, and the result I have told you. It 
is useless to go on witiiout more space. Therefore, if tlie committee see 
fit, we say we will not cross the park that leads down the hill to the entrance 
to the Public Garden ; but even if we do cross it it would only cause a slight 
detour. 

Q. (By Mr. Smardon.) Is there more than one path that you would have 
to cross? 

A. There are two paths. They do not converge. One is on the north side 
upon the hill, and the other is on the south side, or right at the brow of it. 

Mr. Smardon. — Are there three patlis? 

Mr. Paul. — There is another path whicii leads to Boylston street. 

Mr. Smardon. — Which makes three paths. 

Mr. Paul. — Yes, sir. I mean the paths which run down to the Public 
Garden. There is an opportunity to change the form of tlie building. In- 
stead of making it rectangular, we can make it in the form of a cross. We 
say that we will not come within fifty feet of a tree, that not a settee shall be 
disturbed, and we will go where there has never been a seat, — nothing except 
the barren earth. 

Mr. Smith introduced Mr. Allen, a surveyor, who showed a small map of 
the ground ; hut it appeared that it was drawn in 1872, and did not represent 
the ground as it is now. 

The Chairman. — Have you caused a survey to be made, showing that you 
can put a building such as you want on what was formerly known as the boys' 
play-gr(jund, without interfering with the path that leads down to the Public 
Garden bridge, and without interfering with any of the trees or walks? 

Mr. Paul. — We pledge you we can, and we will give a bond to do so. 



THE CLOSING FOR THE REMONSTRANTS. 
Statement of Francis Jaques. 

Mr. Jaques. — I merely want to remark, after listening to the discussion, 
that it seems to me that the officers of the Association, in tiieir remarks, have 
rather put the remonstrants in a wrong position. As I understand it, every 
gentleman who has been present here, — every citizen of Boston wlio joined in 
the remonstrance against this occupation of the Common, — concedes every 
word that has been said by the petitioners as to the beneficent operations of 
the Association; but I do consider that those remarks have been simply beg- 
ging the question. The question is not as to the merits of the Massachusetts 
Charitable Mechanic Association, but simply, is the Common to be given up 
to the erection of a building? And upon that I tliink the remonstrants have 
presented a good case, and I think they represent nineteen-twentietlis of the 
citizens of Boston. Let us look at the practical workings of the tiling; let 
us look forward to the first of July — for I am told that a commencement will 
have to be made at that time — let us imagine that the work has commenced 
on the first of July. It seems that that is to be repeated every three years. 

Mr. Slack. — It never has been admitted. 

Mr. Jaques. — It is so stated. 

Mr. Slack. — We said that would depend upon the growth of the city and 
the development of other places. If Boston should grow so that the centre of 
population was on the Brookline line, we should take our position tliere. I 
wish to disclaim publicly that we have ever said we are going there with tiiis 
immense building. 

Mr. Jaques. — Let us imagine that on the first of July the work has begun, 
and that the building has been erected. The air of tlie Common comes 
directly across Commonwealth avenue, Boylston street and Newbury street; 
they supply fresh air to the Common, and the building will, to a certain extent, 
form a perfect wall, so far as that is concerned, and it will take away the 
benefits obtained by the invalid and the sick, and all who go to the Common 
to get a breath of fresh air. It takes away the character and tone of the Com- 
mon from them, and makes it a different thing for them ; and this 
site would be occupied, before the final removal of tlie building, for five 



Appendix A 43 

months, — all through the dog-days, and all through the unpleasant season of 
the year. 

Although it is not admitted, I tliink there is great danger that it will be 
asked for" again at the end of three years. Furthermore, I believe if that 
building is erected there, there will be the same kind of a plausible argument 
for this society having it again. I believe there would be great danger of 
keeping that building standing. It might be said, it will be a delightful place 
for a winter garden, and let us keep it there for that purpose. 

The Moody and Sankey meetings have often been alluded to. The same 
line of argument used for this petition would apply in that case. Or, if it 
were desired to build a church there larger than could be accommodated on 
any lot, tliey would say, why, you are going to shut out the advantages of 
religion, for here is the only place we can put such a building. 

lend as I began, that it is entirely begging the question to argue whether 
tlie Mechanic Association is useful or not. That is conceded ; but it is an 
important question to the City of Boston whether the Common should be re- 
moved from its legitimate purposes. I believe the restriction in the city char- 
ter is a good one, where it is said the City Council may lease or sell all the 
property of the city except the Common and Faneuil Hall. I think that not only 
the lawyers, but common sense, have shown that a lease for a specified time 
is a lease, whether there is a money consideration or not. 

Mr. Slack. — As your remarks were addressed in good part, will you let 
me say, Mr. Jaques, that if you should come to me as a representative of the 
Webster Bank, or anything else that you have the honor to be connected with, 
and say, certainly we will do this, or that, or the other, I should not want any 
better guaranty. If this Association comes to the City of Boston, and makes 
the same statement, it does not seem to me that it lies in any man's power to 
say that we will not be faithful to our word. I cannot pledge you more 
strongly tlian that We have given a pledge that if this petition is granted 
we will take away the building at the close of the exhibition. The committee 
will have it under their own rules and regulations. 

Now you have suggested that there is a good provision in the city charter 
that the Common and Faneuil Hall shall never be leased. That point was 
offered last Saturday, but the misfortune is that we have had one of tliose re- 
served properties for thirty years. You cannot separate them. If the Common 
can never be leased, then Faneuil Hall cannot. 

Mr. Smith — It seems to me that if this case is to be argued and reargued 
it will never be closed by the remonstrants. 

Mr. Slack. — At the last hearing the remonstrants said they were not ready, 
and we went into an informal interchange of conversation. We answered all 
inquiries, and I really think the committee should not rule against us on this 
occasion, even if the hearing does fall into the conversational style. 

The Chairmak. — The Chair thinks it is in the usual style of such hearings. 
Mr. Slack. — The gentleman (Mr. Jaques) has suggested one thing, and 
that is a desire not to say anything derogatory against this Association. I 
wisli I could say that others were equally sincere. I hold in my hand the 
communications which have been published in the newspapers in regard to 
this exhibition. I have seen one signed by " Blackstone " and another by 
" W. H. Whitmore." It is said that we intend to drive piles and dig trenches 
on the Common. Do they tell us that is all a sham? If all that does not 
mean to degrade the Association, what does it mean? It is to prejudice the 
community against th^ Association. Such communications as have been put 
into the "Advertiser," the "Transcript," and other papers, concerning an Asso- 
ciation with as honorable a record as ours, is not right treatment of this Asso- 
ciation, with Paul Revere as its founder ! As a citizen of Boston, proud of 
its records, I say these allusions to the Association are disgraceful. This 
Association, with such a prestige, has been classed with the " Benevolent 
bricklayers," and the " Cliaritable coopers!" It is a part of that feeling 
which sneers at a man because he earns his living by the sweat of his brow. 
We have a book filled with such communications, and I am going to send it to 
the Public Library as a discredit to the City of Boston, whose prosperity has 
been built up by tiie skill and energy of the manufacturing and mechanical 
interests. 

Yet we have taken it ; we have made no complaints, and yet the gentleman 



44 Appendix A. 

tells us we misjudge tlie remonstrants. Our instincts are as unerring as the 
first light of tiie morning. We kn )vv wlience it comes. I tell you, sir, 
we liave something to say to the great j)ul)lic when this hearing has gonehy. 

Mr. Jaques. — I wish to disclaim the inference drawn from my remarks. I 
in no sense meant to imply that the officers of tliis Association would put in a 
plea this year in order to get a tootiiold. I toolc it as natural V> follow, that 
when the building was constructed the natural result would be to go there for 
the next exhit)ition, because the plea would be all the stronger. 

Mr. Slack. — I accept your explanation entirely. I believe you are 
perfectly sincere. 

Statement of John D. Bryant. 

Mr. Brtant. — I came here with no intention to make a speecli ; but there 
was one thing I intended to say. What I heard last Saturday led me to bear 
in mind the suggestion made by the gentleman who has just taken his seat, 
and by the President of the Association, — that no place had i^een named, that 
no place could be named, where the Association could hold tlieir exhibition. 

I had three or four places in my mind then, and I have taken the pains to 
have some measurements made, liut I have not got them accurately. I pro- 
pose to mention two or three places at the risk of Avearying the committee. 

One is between Dartmouth street, Warren avenue, and Clarendon street, 
and I do not know the street on the other side. I do not know the exact 
dimensions. 

Another is between Columbus avenue, Berkeley street, and Cortes street, 
within a stone's throw of the Providence railroad depot, comprising about six 
acres. It was occupied last summer by Barnum's menagerie ; is very acces- 
sible by horse-cars and to the people at large. It is near Boston Common, 
and is under none of the restrictions that, I believe, are on many other lots. 

Another is the Coliseum ground, where there is verge enough for this most 
respectable and honorable Association to go and spread out to any extent; and 
the fact that one or two streets have been laid out across that ground since the 
jubilee was held there, should be no obstacle to an Association wliicli hesitates 
at notliing so far as its wishes are concerned. That land could be most easily 
controlled, I have no doubt. That lot is free from all objections, and all those 
benefits which the gentleman has reiterated to-day might flow into Boston 
from there without this objection, Mr. Cliairuian and gentlemen. It is cer- 
tainly to be hoped that the Association will not hesitate to bestow that pros- . 
perity upon Boston, if it can do so, by going so near the Common witliout 
encroaching upon the rights of the people. 

One gentleman who has spoken on behalf of the remonstrants at this hear- 
ing thinks the whole question seems not to have been touched by the peti- 
tioners in any way whatever. You can concede — I most cordially do, and 
I think everyone here does — all that is claimed in the panegyric that has 
constituted the chief stock of the petitioners. You need only look at the array 
of names of persons on the remonstrances to know that they come here with 
no malice; and if anybody has put anything in the papers, it is because the 
public good and the public interest is asjainst this petition. 

The real question is, have you aright to grant this permit ? If that has 
not been demonstrated here this afternoon, permit me to suggest a thought or 
two. At the general town meeting of the citizens of Boston, in 1040, it was 
voted that no ground- lease or occupancy of Boston Common should lie made 
without a majority vote of the inhabitants of the town. That vote stands re- 
affirmed. It was reaffirmed by vote of the inhabitants when the city charter 
was adopted, by which they say that the City Council shall not sell or lease 
any part of Boston Common. That vote, passed more than a century ago, 
prohibited any exercise of the power to dispose of the free use and occupancy 
of the ground of Boston Common ; and yet it is in the face of that vote — 
standing unrepealed — that you gentlemen are asked to go in violation of that 
whole thing, and permit the erection of a building here. I do not care bow 
virtuous are the purposes, that vote says you shall not do it; and when you 
bring in an array of argument and prejudice in favor of it, it should not need 
any argument on the other side to show you that you should not do it. It is 
not right; it does not need any argument. 



Appendix A. 45 

Then, if you had the right, it would not be expedient to grant it. When 
you have strained every nerve, and have taxed the people for more park room, 
then you can give this Association all the scope they want in the new park. 
But do not compel the people to resort to the courts. I beg of you, as a 
committee of the City Government, not to put yourselves in this position. 

You cannot deny tliat the question of riglit is an open one, even if you are 
convinced that it is expedient. But do not put yourselves in a position where 
the citizens, in order to get their rights, have got to go to the courts or to the 
Legislature. 



Closing Argument for the Remonstrants, by R. D. Smith. 

Mr. Smith. — I hope I rise to close this hearing, and I shall do so with a very 
few words, I assure you. My getting up at all reminds me of the story of a certain 
lawyer, who asked, after arguing a case for five hours, " When will it be your 
lordship's pleasure to hear me again?" The judge replied, "It will be my 
duty to hear you to-morrow morning, but my pleasure long since ceased." 

1 think the committee will admit that in the conduct of this hearing 
there have been no witnesses produced who have indulged in vituperation, and 
that no attempt has been made, by appealing to improper motives, to influence 
the gentlemen of the committee. I have that confidence in them to believe 
that they are sitting upon this matter in a judicial capacity ; and, if any impu- 
tations liave been cast upon them, it has been by members of the Association. 
I do not know or care anything about the newspapers, and I hope that you, as 
a judicial body, will try this case as a committee considering what the people 
of Boston consider one of their dearest rights. 

I had supposed — and that, perhaps, may explain the irregularity in which 
the case for the remonstrants was put in — that when anybody wished to 
establish a right before a court, it was his duty to come forward, and tliat it 
was not the duty of tlie party opposed to assign reasons in advance. There- 
fore, we had to go forward with much cumulative evidence by persons who 
freely expressed their minds in giving their testimony. That is the reason why 
we wearied you. It seems to me that it is an unpliilosophical way to conduct 
a hearing. 

And now, with regard to the case made by the petitioners. A wrong im- 
pression has gone out, I am sorry to say, in regard to this committee ; and 
that is, that they had decided this matter beforehand, and that it was a fore- 
gone conclusion tliat a report was to be made to the City Council in favor of 
this petition. I am told that the petitioners liaving appeared, and there being 
no remonstrants against it, the report was made ; but that the minds of the 
committee are still open to conviction. It has not been so considered in the 
minds of the community ; and, therefore, the great feeling that has been 
aroused in a large part of the community over the Common should be 
discredited. 

I think tliere has been a little favor given to that view by the petitioners 
here. They came down as King James did, claiming that he had a right to 
come down, and sit with the judges on the bench as they were going through 
the farce of hearing evidence. 

But, gentlemen, I have heard no evidence. They have had no evidence. 
There has been no reason assigned why they should have the Common. There 
is no one, among all the people in this hall to-day, — no person in Boston, — 
who does not actually feel that his welfare is bound up in the commercial 
prosperity of Boston. I do not know one person who could wish to have but 
the most kindly feelings toward this Association, — that is, as kindly as he 
can toward any great chartered institution. 

But it is a private corporation, and it is as a great corporation that it puts 
in this request to take a piece of land used for public purposes by the citizens 
whose interests you are to protect. 

The arguments I have heard were based upon the beneficence of this institu- 
tion ; the great fairs it has held, and the great interest in seeing a carpet-loom 
(which I should like to see) ; but there has not been one reason given why it 
should take this particular place. If it was necessary to have it, it was their 
duty to show that there is no other place. 



46 Appendix A. 

I now instance one lot of 40,000 square feet — the Fort Hill lot — which, 
with three stories, gives 140,000 square feet. 

Tliey reminded me very niucli of something said by one of the old Whig 
papers while my friend, Frank Pierce, was in power. He vetoed a bill of Con- 
gress and sent in a message four columns in length. One of the papers in 
Boston said, Pierce lias vetoed such a bill in a message of four columns, for 
reasons assigned. And that is just the case here : They have not been able to 
assign a single reason ; and, realh', I believe that if this matter were submitted 
to the very body which they represent — an Association consisting, as it does, 
of so many sensible men — tiiey would not do what tliey come here and ask 
you to do. The people interested in the Coliseum voted at the time not to 
take the Common, and I think this Association itself would not make such a 
move. 

I know there are members of the Association here to-day who would not. 
I understand that the treasurer of the Association and another gentleman 
oppose this petition. We liave several witnesses here to show that the 
Association wish to hold no fair this year, to be a shadow of the great Centen- 
. nial, and who know how the people of Boston, and of all New England, have 
been depleted by visiting that exhibition. If Massachusetts was not able to 
attract the attention of foreign powers to the great exhibition in Philadelphia, 
she will not be able to attract them to one which must be the siiadow of that 
great exhibition. 

Now, gentlemen, I do not discuss the legality of this matter. I have too 
high a respect for Mr. Healy to believe that he says you can do it; and unless 
you feel morally certain that he has given such an opinion, I hope you will 
obtain his written opinion upon the subject, for lawyers often change their 
opinions after examining a question. I think that Mr. Healy will saj', after 
examining the opinions of Mason, Dexter and others, that there is a very 
grave question whether the City Council has this right. 

But that is not the only question. This building may be elegantly built of 
iron and u lass, which it will be a pleasure to visit; but I think you cannot 
help admitting that, located, as it will be, across the Common, this building 
will certainly be a great inconvenience to a large class of our citizens ; for it 
is not to be built like Aladdin's palace, in the night, or like Solomon's temple, 
without saw or hammer. It must cover the ground with refuse of timber and 
materials, and various other unpleasantnesses which accompany the erection 
of a large building. 

I am much obliged to you, gentlemen, and although I have endeavored to 
be brief, I know that I have wearied you. 



Letters submitted. 

Mr. Smith submitted the following : — 

February 17, 1877. 
J. J. French, Esq. : — 

My dear Sir, — I cannot be present this P. M. at the hearing on the appli- 
cation of the Mechanic Association for the use of the Common. If present, 
I should simply say, — I object, not as against the Mechanic Association; 
that body should have it, if any one, for a similar purpose ; but I object as 
establishing an embarassing precedent. If the city is prepared to let the 
Mechanic Association use the Common for its purposes, the same rule nmst 
hereafter be applied to applications frum musical festivals. Moody & Sankey 
visits, fairs, shows of animals, etc., etc. Boston, present and prospective, 
for purposes of health and pleasure, requires all the open spaces it now 
possesses, and while the present application, and those to follow of a kindred 
nature, may be considered temporary, the precedent will be used as an argu- 
ment hereafter for permanency. 

Cordially yours, 

ALPHEUS HARDY. 

The Chairman submitted the following : — 



Appendix A. 47 

Boston, February 17, 1877. 

Hon. John T. Clark, Chairman Board of Aldermen, Boston : — 

^jV^ — I regret that prior engagements will prevent me from attending the 
hearing tliis P. M. in support of the petition to grant the use of the Common 
to the Mechanic Association. The National Rubber Co.'s exhibit at the 
Centennial cost, for three cases, four thousand dollars, the goods six thousand 
dollars, and the same will be placed here, if the Association occupy the Com- 
mon. . 

None of the rubber companies have made exhibits at the former fairs, as 
they regarded the rooms wholly inadequate and unworthy, and the location 
decidedly objectionable ; but 1 am sure all will make very generous displays 
if the Association uses the Common. 

All the companies I represent believe the Common cannot serve Boston and 
New England better than as a location for the proposed exhibition. 



Very respectfully yours, 

CM. CLAPP. 



[This closed the hearing.] 



APPENDIX B. 



[Note. — It has seemed arlvis.able to repi-int the opinions of Jeremiah IMason 
and Franklin Dexter, as given in 1843, since the original pamphlet of nineteen 
pages, printed by John H. Eastbiirn, is now very scarce. 

The question discussed arose as follows : In 1794 the town voted to grant 
certain land and tlats west from Charles street for the purpose of placing a 
ropewalk thereon. Some thirty years later the city bought back the lands so 
conveyed. The City Council afterwards contended that this land had been 
severed from the Common, and was not included in the prohibition in the city 
charter against selling or leasing the Common. 

In considering this question, the counsel review the whole subject of the 
dedication of the Common.] 

Title. " Boston Common. Boston: John H. Eastburn, printer. 1843." 

On reverse of title is the following certificate : — 

"We have examined the records for the County of Suffolk, and are of 
opinion that the lands now proposed to be sold by the city, lying north of the 
depot of the Boston and Providence Railroad Corporation, were originally part 
of the Boston Common. 

" C. P. & B. R. CURTIS, 
"N. I. BOWDITCH. 
"Boston, November 6, 1843." 

CASE. 

The opinion of counsel is requested on the following case : Prior to 1 794 
the lands in question were a part of the Common in the town of Boston. They 
consisted in part of upland and in part of flats appurtenant thereto. In the 
year 1800, or thereabout, Charles street was laid out through this land, and at 
some subsequent period (the precise date is not known, but before the year 
1820) that part of the Common east of Charles street was enclosed by a fence, 
which ran along on the east side of Charles street. On the first day of Sep- 
tember, in the year 1794, the inhabitants of Boston passed the votes, of which 
the following is a copy : — 

"Voted to Isaac Davis and others, to hold to them and to their heirs and 
assignees forever, the first fifty feet of said piece of land, etc., upon the 
following conditions : — 

(1.) That neither the said grantees, nor their heirs or assignees, shall at any 
time hereafter erect, or cause to be erected, any ropewalk upon the land 
where the late ropewalks were consumed by fire, nor any part thereof. 

(2.) That there never be any other buildings than roj)ewalks erected upon 
the lands hereby granted, nor more than six of them. 

(3.) That the heads of the ropewalks to be erected thereon be placed at 
the southerly end of the said granted lands ; that they shall not be more than 
one story in height, nor the eaves more than seven feet from the floor, except- 
ing forty feet from the head of each walk, for a store, wliicli may be two stories 
high, they to be built with brick and covered with slates. 

(4.) That the grantees aforenamed erect, within the space of two years 
from the present time, at their own expense, a sufficient sea-wall, in the opinion 
of the Selectmen, for the time being, the whole length of the said granted 



50 Appendix B. 

lands, on the •westerly side thereof, at a distance not exceeding thirty feet 
from the same, the riglit of property in which wall, if erected without the 
bounds of the grant, shall be in tlie town ; and nothing in the foregoing grants 
shall be considered as conveying to the said grantees any right of passage in 
any direction across the Couunon to or from the granted lands. 

Voted, That the Selectmen, in the name and behalf of the said town, be and 
hereby are authorized and requested to execute good and sufficient deeds to tho 
aforesaid grantees of the lots granted to them as aforesaid, upon the conditions 
and with the restrictions and reservations hereinbefore described, and that they 
insert in the deeds so to be executed a covenant on tlie part of the town, that 
tliey will not l)uild any ropewalk on tlie Common, nor ever hereafter grant 
any part tliereof for the purposes of building such walk. 

It was also voted that the said grantees are authorized and empowered to 
extend the limits of said land hereby granted, fifty feet over the flats, they 
relinquishing the same space on the easterly side of said land, or to alter the 
said limits so as to extend across the said marsh in a diagonal direction, pro- 
vided they do not in either case come nearer than fifty feet to the end of the 
rail fence aforesaid, nor run northerly so as to cross tlie said line to be run 
jiarallel with Beacon street, reserving, however, sixty feet in width across the 
southerly end of said piece of land, for a road from Pleasant street down 
to the channel. Boston Rec, Sept. 1, 1794, fol. 8, p. 43-1. On the 31st 
day of August, 1796, the Selectmen executed a deed, of which the follow- 
ing is an abstract, by which the town of Boston conveyed to William McNeil 
and Archibald McNeil, two of the grantees aforenamed, part of the granted 
lands, in pursuance of the above votes, and upon the same restrictions 
and conditions as Avere expressed in the deeds to all of the said grantees. 
By these deeds the Selectmen convey to the grantees aforesaid a certain 
tract of land at the bottom of the Common upon certain terms and con- 
ditions therein mentioned, but set forth more at large in the votes of the 
town, of which the above is a copy. These lands are conveyed to the said 
grantees, their heirs and assigns, to their and their assigns only use, benefit, 
and behoof forever. Provided always, and these presents are on the condi- 
tions, etc., following; that is to say, that the inhabitants reserve the liberty- 
and privilege, at any time hereafter, to carry sluice-ways or drains through 
the said land in any direction towards the salt water, and further, that the 
grantees, their heirs and assigns, shall not erect, or cause to be erected, any 
ropewalk upon the lands where their late ropewalk stood, or upon any part 
thereof; t'liat there never be any other building than one ropewalk erected on 
the granted land ; that the head of the ropewalk to be erected thereon be placed 
at the southerly end of the said granted lands ; that the same shall not be more 
than one story in height, nor the eaves more than seven feet from the floor, 
excepting forty feet from the head of each walk, for a store, which may be 
two stories in height if built with brick and covered with slates; that tlie said 
grantees, at their own expense, within two years from the said first of Sep- 
tember, build a sufficient sea-wall, in the opinion of the Selectmen for the 
time being, tlie whole length of the said granted lands on the westerly side 
thereof, agreeable to the true intent and meaning of the town votes passed as 
aforesaid, as will appear by reference thereto. Provided also, that nothing in 
these deeds shall be construed to convey any right to passage in any direction 
. to or from the granted lands across the Common ; and the said inluibitants, by 
their Selectmen, do covenant and agree with the said grantees, their heirs and 
assigns, that they will not build, or cause to be built, any ropewalk on the 
Common, nor make any grant of any part thereof for the purpose of biiildiug 
such walk, other than such as is granted in the votes referred to. Executed 
on the 31st day of August, 179G. 

This was the state of the title at the time when the city charter was granted. 
The land was then occupied by six ropewalks, under these grants from the 
town. After the city ciiarter was granted, the city purchased the titles of 
William Gray and others, the proprietors of the ropewalks, and tlie same 
were conveyed to the city. The question is whether the Mayor, Aldermen and 
Common Council have the power, under the city charter, to sell and convey 
the laud in question. 



Appendix B. 51 



OPINION. 

The first point of inquiry in this case, in the view I have taken of it, is as to 
the right and title of tlie City of Boston to the Common. The case states that 
the land now proposed to be sold was, until the year 1794, a p;irt of tlie Com- 
mon. In that year the town [)assed certain votes, by virtue of which the land 
in question, or a part of it, was afterwards sold. The city succeeded to all the 
rights of the town, and has, since its incorporation, repurchased this land. It 
is necessary, therefore, to ascertain what right the town of Boston had in the 
Common at the time of the sale in 1794. 

It is matter of notoriety tiiat from ancient time, — commencing near the first 
settlement of the town, — the Common has always been kept as a public square 
or park, and freely used by the public for militarj^ trainings and as a place of 
general resort for exercise, and the circulation of pure and wholesome air. 
During this long period the Common has never been a^jplied to any use 
inconsistent with the public use. Such use and occupation by the public from 
time immemorial is evidence of the dedication of the land by tlie owners, who- 
ever they were, to the public, for the uses and purposes to which it has been 
applied. 

That land may be so dedicated to the public by parol, without any deed or 
written conveyance, is a well-settled doctrine of the common law. On this 
principle rests the right of the public to many of the public squares and 
streets in Boston. The case is the same in most other cities and large towns 
throughout the country. 

The right of the public to the use of property thus acquired by dedication 
is no more revocable by the former owner than it would be if secured by the 
most formal and solemn conveyance. A corporation is as competent to make 
the dedication as a private person. Whether the dedication in this case was 
made by Blackstone, who is said to have been, anciently, the owner of the 
whole peninsula of Boston, or by the town, after it acquired a title, is of no 
importance. The use and occupation for so long a period is conclusive evi- 
dence of a valid dedication, and the making it by the town gives no pretence 
of a right to annul or revoke it. The dedication was for the public at large, 
and it cannot be annulled or revoked, except by the assent of the supreme 
power of the State. The fee may still remain in the city, subject to the public 
use, and the city may have the superintendence of the land, and apply it to 
any purpose not inconsistent with the public use. There is no necessity for 
trustees for the protection of the public use. All encroachments by the erec- 
tion of buildings, fences, or otherwise interfering with or injurious to this use, 
are considered and treated as nuisances, and may be removed liy judicial pro- 
ceedings, if instituted in due season. Our Revised Statutes, chaji. 24:, sec. Gl, 
relating to public nuisances and their removal by public prosecution, provides 
against nuisances on highways, training fields, burying-places, landing-places, 
or other land appropriated for the general use or convenience of the inliabi- 
tants of the Commonwealth, or of any county, town or parish. This last 
clause would clearly include the Common. 

The validity of the dedication of i)roperty to public uses has been recog- 
nized by the Supreme Judicial Court of this State. 2 Pick., 44, Common- 
wealth vs. Tucker; 12 Pick., 405, Hobbs vs. Lowell. Indeed, I do not know 
that the validity of the dedicatioii to public uses, of property like that under 
consideration, has ever been doubted. 

Doubts have been suggested against it when applied to highways, but solely 
on the ground that highways in this State were supposed to be exclusively reg- 
ulated by the provisions of our statutes. But these doubts were in the last- 
mentioned case examined and overruled. 

In several very important cases in tlie Supreme Court of the United States 
this subject has been largely and very ably discussed ; and the validity of the 
dedica ion by parol of property like that under consideration, to public uses, 
has been affirmed by the unanimous opinion of the court. I refer to the cases 
of the City of Cincinnati vs. Wliite, Barclay vs. Howell, in 6 of Peters Re- 
ports, and New Orleans vs. United States, in 10 of Peters. In the last case 
the doctrine is laid down in the most emphatic terms. 



52 Appendix B. 

It is understood that encroachments have heretofore been made on certain 
parts of tlic Common, under sales made by tlie town, and the erection of 
buildings thereon. It is held by the Supreme Court of the United States, in 
the last-named case, that such encroachments furnish no evidence, and raise 
no iiresum])tion against the validity of the dedication. 

I am aware that a popular opinicm has prevailed that the town formerly had 
power to si'Il the whole Common for any purpose whatever, and that the City 
Council at the present time would have had the like power were it not for the 
restraint imposed on them by the charter. But I am not aware that such 
opinion has ever been sanctioned by any judicial decision, or sustained by the 
oiDinion of any counsel on due consideration. 

Eesting on the ancient principles of the common law recognized by the 
Supreme Courts of the United States, and of this State, we may safely con- 
clude that the town, in the year 1794, when it made the grants mentioned in 
the statement, had no lawful power to sell any part of the Conuuon, to be ap- 
plied to any purpose or use inconsistent with the public use to M'h;ch it had 
been dedicated. 

The inquiry still remains whether the City Council can rightfully sell the 
lands in question by virtue of tlie authority given them by the charter. 
The City Charter provides that "the City Council shall have the care and 
superintendence of the public buildings, and the care, custody and manage- 
ment of all the property of the city, with power to lease or sell the same, 
except the Common and I'aneuil Hall." The case states that the lands in 
question, now proposed to be sold by the City Council, were originally, before 
the year 1794-, a part of the Common. 

In that year, which was before the granting of the charter, the town of 
Boston granted, in fee simple, subject to certain conditions, to wit, that no 
buildings should bo ever erected thereon, except ropewalks of seven feet in 
height, from the floor to the eaves, with heads at the southeast end of two 
stories for the space of forty feet, and certain other conditions, unimportant to 
the present inquiry. Ropewalks were erected, in conformity with the con- 
ditions of the grant. 

After the incorporation of the city, which was done in 1821, the city pur- 
chased from the proprietors of the ropewalks the land as aforesaid granted by 
the town, and took a conveyance thereof, and the ropewalks were taken down. 

It is understood that the City Council contend that by reason of this grant 
and repurchase, the land in question does not come within the exception in the 
charter, because this land liefore the granting of the charter had been sold and 
conveyed away to jjrivate individuals, and was in their actiuil occupation, and 
was thereliy severed from the Common, and therefore not in the exceptiim. 

That the land in question originally constituted a part of the Common is a 
fact stated in the case. It must therefore be deemed to be within the excep- 
tion in the charter, unless, by means of the grant and repurchase, it has ceased 
to be a part of the Common. The exception includes the whole Common. To 
the City Council was given the full and entire power of the city cori^oration, of 
selling all its property except the Conunon and Faneuil Hall. As the city 
cannot sell anything in any other way or manner than by the agency of the 
City Council, this exception amounts to an inhibition of a sale of the Common 
and Faneuil Hall, which the city was supposed to hold in trust for public 
uses. 

In deciding what is the effect of the grant of 1794, it must be recollected 
that the town in that time had no rightfvd power to grant the land in question 
for any purpose or use inconsistent M'ith the public use to which it has been 
dedicated. So far as that grant was inconsistent with the public use it was 
void. And it is believed that no grant inconsistent with the public use was 
intended. 

This grant, althotigh purporting to give an estate in fee simple, was not 
absolute and unconditional, but on condition that the granted premises should 
be used for one purpose only, to wit, for the erection tliereon of six ropewalks 
of a prescribed height, and that no buildings whatsoever should ever be erected 
on the same. The intention of the grantors in introducing this condition into 
the grant is oln-ious. It was to restrict the grantees to a tise of the land which 
was sui)i)()sed not to be inconsistent or incompatible with the use to which 
the public were entitled. The erection of such low builings, not greatly ob- 



Appendix B. 53 

structin,!? the prospect or the free circulation of air, it was supposed wouhl not 
materially atfect or injure the public use. It was not intended to release the 
land from the public use, but to keep it in sul)serviency to such use. No other 
reason is perceived why the grant was made on this condition. The question 
is not, whether the grant, with this condition restraining tlie grantees to this 
special use, was perfectly consistent with the public use ; but what was the 
intention of the parties. "The town, having the general superintendence of the 
Common, might appropriate any part, for a longer or shorter time, to any use 
or purpose deemed not to 1)e inconsistent with the public use, without thereby 
severing such part from the Common, or discharging from the puldic use. 

The grant of the land in question, by the town, for tlie special purpose desig- 
nated, instead of operating as a severance of it from the Common, tends to show 
an intention that it should remain a part of the Common subject to the public 
use. 

By the repurchase from the proprietors of thq ropewalks the city acquired 
no new title nor any other title than what the town had at the time of the 
grant. It merely restored the land to its former condition, discharged from 
the special use for which it iiad been granted. 

The effect of the repurchase is no greater or other than would have been a 
forfeiture by breach of condition by the grantees and an entry therefor by the 
citv. 

That would have restored to the city the former right and title of the town, 
and nothing more, placing all things in the same condition they were in before 
the grant to the ropewalk proprietors. The repurchase has the same eifect. 
The city can now show no better or other title than what the town had when 
the grant was made. The only title of the town then, and of the city at the 
time of its incorporation, and at the present time, is that it was part and parcel 
of tlie Common. 

But should it be held that the land in question Avas not a part of the Com- 
mon at the time of the incorporation of the city, by reason of the grant to the 
ropewalk proprietors, I am still inclined to the opinion that it became a part of 
the Common by the repurchase within the true meaning of the exception in 
the cliarter. 

This exception was introduced to restrain the City Council from selling the 
Common or any part of it. The restraint was intended to extend to whate.ver 
should, at any time, constitute the Connnon. A piece of land at the southeast 
corner of the Connnon, not originally lielonging to it, was, many years ago, 
purchased and added to it. This doubtless now constitutes a part of the 
Common, and comes within the exception of the charter. The case would be 
the same with any other piece of land liereafter acquired by the city, by pur- 
chase or otherwise, as and for an addition to the Common. I am therefore of 
opinion that the City Council has no lawful authority to sell the lands in 
question for any use inconsistent with the public use, to which they were 
originally dedicated. 



J. MASON. 



Boston, October 31, 18i3. 



OPINION. 



The case states the lands in question to have been part of Boston Connnon 
prior to 179-1. The city cliarter authorizes the City Council to sell any of the 
public lands except the Common (and Faneuil Hall). If the town had before 
the power of selling the Common the acceptance of the charter would seem to 
be relinquished of tliat power, as no legal mode remains of making any con- 
veyance of it. But it is not disputed tliat the operation of tlie charter is such 
as "to prevent the sale of "the Common," and that if these lands are now a 
part of the Common the Council have no power to sell tliem ; at least I have 
not heard that point questioned. The question proposed, therefore, results in 
this : Have these lands been etFectually severed so as no longer to form a part 
of the Common, by the grant of 179-t, and the other circumstances stated in 
the case, and, if so, has the repurchase of them by the city made them again a 
part of the Common? 

It cannot be doul)ted that the town of Boston owned all the ungranted land 
within its limits. The deeds from Blackstone and the Indian deed of 168i-5, 



54 Appendix B. 

ami the act of the Colonial Legislature of 1C70, aiitliorizing tlie towns by their 
freemen, or a majority of them, to grant tlie "town's own hinds," have, in all 
cases in which it has become necessary to trace the tith's of lands iu ISoston 
to their origin, l)een admitted as sufficient jiroof of title in the town. 

It is e(inally clear tliat from a very early period of the settlement, the land 
known as the Common was dedicated to pulilic use. Upon this point there 
can be no disi)ute ; a clearer case of dedication cannot be stated. 

The title by dedication, or, rather, the public right of use by mere dedica- 
tion, is recognized by tlie common law, by the courts of the United States and 
the courts of tliis Commonwealth (see 2 Peters, 2:31 ; Cincinnati rs White; 
and 1!) Pick., 405, Hobbs rs. Lowell, and the cases tliere cited). According 
to the doctrines of these cases, tlie grant to the public by dedication, when 
once made, is perpetual and irrevocaVile, and binds the land into whose ever 
liands the legal estate may come. It needs no deed for its origin, no grantee 
to receive it, and no lapse of time to support it. The will of the owner, once 
clearly expressed and carried into effect, vests a perpetual right in the pul)lic 
— not to the fee of the land, for that may still reside in the dedicator, and may, 
perhaps, be transmitted liy inheritance or assigned by deed : but the right to 
use it for the purpose of the dedication remains in the pulilic. 

Nor does it make any difierence in this case that the town of Boston, in its 
corporate capacity, owned the fee of the land. The public, to whom the 
dedication was made, was not the corporate body of the town acting by its 
majority, but it was each and all of the inhabitants. It Avas a dedication by 
the majority for the use of the whole, and cannot be revoked or impaired by 
any corporate act or vote of the majority or of the representative body (the 
City Council), who have by the city charter succeeded to the powers of that 
majority. The town, in this respect, holds the same relation to the public as 
any other proprietor of land would, who had made such a dedication. 

It is olnious that individuals acquire vested rights in such a dedication ; 
they purchase and build in the neighborhood upon the faith of it ; and the use 
is not a corporate, but an individual use, in which every citizen has a part and 
a right. 

If this be so, it is quite unnecessary to inquire into the character of the grant 
to Davis and others, in 1794, because the town had no right or power at that 
time to make any grant of those lands inconsistent with the public use to 
Avhicli they had been dedicated. The grant was void so far as its terms were 
inconsistent with that use ; and the mere conveyance of the fee, if the town 
had power to make it, would not deprive the public of their right. The 
holder of the legal estate, be he who he may, is, after such a dedication, a 
mere trustee for the public, to the extent and for the puriioses of the dedi- 
cation. 

It is true, that if these lands had been unconditionally conveyed by the town 
to Davis and others, and they had built upon them, or otherwise occupied 
them in a manner inconsistent with the public use, long acquiescence by the 
public in that occupation would be held to be an al)andonment of the dedica- 
tion to that extent, and the titles of the grantees would become indefeasible. 
It is said that a considerable part of what Avas once the Common is, iu fact, so 
occupied. No such right, however, could have accrued to Davis and others, 
by lapse of time, beyond the qualified use granted to them ; and whatever 
rights they might have acquired by time, were extinguished when the city 
repurchased the land. 

It is not immaterial, however, to remark that the grant to Davis and others 
was made for public purposes, for the maintenance of the ropewalks necessary 
for the trade of the town, and to prevent their erection in other places, where 
they would expose other buildings to the danger of fires such as had then 
recently occurred in Pearl street, and that the town received no pecuniary 
consideration for the grant. The grant was also encumbered with conditions 
as to the mode of enjoyment, which clearly showed that the toAvn understood 
the land to be still appropriated to public uses. I consider, therefore, the 
grant to Davis and others to have ])een, in effect, a mere license to erect rope- 
walks on the public lands, for public purposes ; and, so long as the inhabitants 
were not disturbed by them in the enjoyment of any valuable privilege in the 
lands, the grants might probably have been sustained upon grounds of public 
policy. 



Appendix B. 55 

But be this as it may, I consider it very clear that when the city repurcha'^ed 
these lands from Gray and others, thev took tliem back clotlied with the entire 
crio-inal trust m favor of the puljlic. I df) not mean that ])y this repurchase the 
lands again become a part of the Common (by a sort of jus posilimimi) ; but 
tjiat, never havmg ceased to be so, the city derived no new power of disposi- 
tion irom the fact of repurchase. The removal of the ropcwalks, however 
to lowmg that repurchase, and the reclaiming of the marsh by the process of 
tilhng up, have rendered this part of the Common available for all tliose public 
uses winch were the original olyects of the dedication, and might now prevent 
tlie city from cncuml)cring it, even for public purposes similar to those for 
whicli the grant to Davis and others was formerly made. 

It will be observed that I do not found my denial of the right of the City 
Council to sell these lands upon the prohibition contained, by implication in 
the city charter, but upon the prior dedication to public uses, which it would 
require all the powers of the Legislature to revoke. I consider the words in 
the charter to be in etfect, as they are in form, mere words of exception in- 
serted that It nnght not l)e supposed that, by any general grant of authority to 
the City Council to sell the lands of the town, the Legislature intended to em- 
power them to sell those dedication lands, which the^ inhabitants of the town 
could not themselves have sold. 

I do not particularly notice several circumstances in the case, as to tending- 
to show the comparatively recent construction put by the town authority upon 
tlie meaning and extent of the word "Common," as I do not think they can 
attect a dedication so long prior. 

It is my opinion, therefore, that, notwithstanding the grant to Davis and 
others, and the repurchase by the citv, and the other tacts stated in the case 
the lands in question still remain dedicated to the public use as common land' 
and cannot lawfully be sold by the City Council. 

>T ^ o, ,0,0 FRANIdN DEXTER. 

November 2d, 18^3. 



56 Appendix B. 



THE CITY SOLICITOR'S OPINION, 1813. 

The opinion of the City Solicitor, John Pickering, was called for by the 
City Council in 18-i3, and is printed as City Document No. 23^ of that year. 

The following extracts add something to the history of this subject : — 

He was asked " Avhether the City Council have any power under the City 
Charter to sell any part of the Public Lands West of Boylston street and South 
of the continuation of Boylston street? " 

He refers to his previous opinion about part of the lands, and makes the 
, following statements and argument : — 

" The portion of the Common Lands thus appropriated for a Training Field, 
etc., has ever been understood in a general view, to include what is now called, 
in popular language, the Common ; and it may be presumed to have been Land 
of such a quality as was suitable for the purpose of a ' Training Field ' and 
'the feeding of cattle.' The extent of this Training Field or Common has, 
however, varied at different periods, and the changes cannot now be ascer- 
tained with precision." 

"In the early periods of its history a document of some importance is a 
Lease given by the Town to Governor Leverett, dated February 26th, 1665, 
by which they leased to him a piece of Land in this part of the Town, which 
is thus described in the lease : — 

" ' A parcel of land lying and being in Boston aforesaid, called or known by 
the name of Fox Hill, with all the Marsh about the same so far as the salt 
water flowes, bounded with tlie highway South, witli the Town's Commons 
East and North, and with the Beach and Sea West.' 

"The situation of 'Fox Hill, with the Marsh about it,' is satisfactorily 
known,* it being westerly of the present Common, and with the marsh, extend- 
ing in a soutlierly direction as for as the public lands now extend on Pleasant 
street, and probaldy, at the period of this ancient lease, reaching still further 
South. A part of the ' Marsh ' lay westerly of Fox Hill, and a part easterly of 
it, or between that hill and tlie upland or ' Common ; ' and this last-mentioned 
part of the Marsh (or a portion of it) afterwards fell within the ropewalk 
grant, in which it is described as Marsh land. 

" At the time of this Lease, then, the Common seems to have been limited 
on the AVest side by a boundary line, not perfectly defined, but in the general 
direction of the border of the upland, which could not have been far from the 
main course of Charles street, or the bottom of the Common." 

" So far as the votes and acts of the Town and City may be of weight in 
determining tlie extent and meaning of the word ' Common,' it may be re- 
marked, generally, that it has been in most cases considered to include only 
the land enclosed by the fence, though there are some entries in the records in 
which a greater extent eastward is given to it." 

" It has been suggested that the Land in question may be considered as part 
of the Common, on the ground of their being flats, and as such appurtenant 
to tlie upland called the Common, in conformity with the principle of the 
ancient Colony Ordinance respecting rights in flats. 

"The question now presented, however, does not, in my opinion, bring the 
case within the jirinciple of that ordinance. The flats undoubtedly were the 
property of the City, and were appurtenant to their upland; but they were 
not the property of the City as being appurtenant to the Common as such. 
The term ' Common ' was the name of a piece of land appropriated to a 
specific public use : as, at one time for a pasture, at another for a training 
field, at another for a public walk, etc. ; and a Common by that description 

*This statement about Fox Hill has ouly the authority of Mr. Pickering, and is not 
undisputed. — W. U. VC. 



Appendix B. 57 

would not be presumed in law to draw after it, as an incident, the adjacent 
flats, particularly if those flats were of such a nature as not to admit of their 
being used and enjoyed for the purposes of a pasture, a training-field, a public 
walk, etc., to which the Common itself was appropriated. 

" The views here submitted, if well founded, supersede the necessity of 
considering some technical questions in relation to the eff"ect of the sale and 
repurchase of the ropewalk lands.* And on the subject generally, I beg to 
be understood, that although some of the above remarks may be considered 
to have a bearing on the subject of the lands immediately west of tlie Com- 
mon, yet my opinion is inicnded to he confined to the legal question distinctly 
submitted by the Common Council, which by its terms is limited to the lands 
' west of Pleasant street and south of the continuation of Boylston street;' 
and in respect to these lands, my opinion is, that the City has a legal right to 
sell them, subject to the qualification arising from the use of the way over the 
southerly end, between Pleasant street and the sea-wall, which was considered 
in my former opinion, 

" I am, sir, 

" Your obedient servant, 

"JOHN PICKERING, 

^^City Solicitor." 
Addressed Sept. 27, 1843, 

EDWARD BLAKE, Esq., 

President of the Common Coimcil. 

[Note. — The following extracts are from the previous opinion of Mr. 
Pickering, dated Sept. 8, 1843 (City Doc. No. 23) : — 

The main point discussed was that the ropewalk grant was to begin 500 
feet from Beacon street, and run soiitherly "as far as the Town's land extends 
on the west side of Pleasant street." 

" Tliis description," he says, " carries the City's land along Pleasant street, 
and across the open space west of the Arsenal land, as far southerly as the 
boundary-line of the land known as the estate of Vose (formerly of Noah 
Porter), which boundary-line is believed to be ascertained." 

It was urged that the following clause was really of effect to lay out a street : 
"Reserving, however, sixty feet in width across the southerly end of said 
piece of land for a road from Pleasant street to the channel." 

Concerning this he says, "It appears that the tide-waters frequently flowed 
up as high as the line of Charles street, so as at high water to cover the lands 
on which the ropewalks were placed." 

"The sea-wall was built all along the western line of the ropewalk grant, 
and was carried southerly quite across the supposed way to the land of Vose 
before mentioned ; and it appears that the tide-waters flowed up from four to 
six feet in depth against the outside of this wall, as well against that part 
which crossed the way, as in other places." 

He concludes that the City might sell all the land, except, possibh'-, that 
part which has been used as a way from Pleasant street towards the sea-wall.] 

*Mr. Pickering liad previously repeated iiis opinion th.at tlie i-opewalk lands " did not 
constitute a part of the Common, within the purview of the Charter at tlie tuiie it was 
granted." 



APPENDIX C* 



The origin of Boston Common is unfortunately not a matter of 
record. If it were laid out before A.D. 1634, no record would be 
found, as the earliest v^olume of the town records begins on Sep- 
tember 1st of that 3-ear. But we may well follow the opinion of 
SiiAw, in his Histor}' of Boston, that no formal dedication of the 
Common was made earlier than 1634, and that its use and boun- 
daries were defined about 1640. 

Originally the territory of Boston was granted undoubtedl}' to 
the then inhabitants, with the understanding that new settlers would 
receive a proper share of the land. This was the custom, as John- 
son states, in regard to Woburn and all other towns. Of the incor- 
poration of Boston we only know that on the 7th September, 
1630, at the second meeting of the Court of Assistants (the first 
having been on the 23d of August preceding), it was ordered 
"that the town of Mattapan be called Dorchester; that upon 
Charles river, Watertown ; and that Trimountain be called 
Boston." 

We know that appointments of land were made at once ; in fact 
without some such arrangement the streets could not have been 
established nor houses built. Yet the Book of Possessions, in 
which most of the grants are recorded, was not compiled much 
earlier than 1646, and it contains proof of earlier grants. 

In 1636 town orders were passed in regard to fences around the 
town fields, viz. : those on the Neck, the Fort field, the Mill field, 
the new field, and W. Colburn's field. The last-named field was 
practically the Common, says Shaw (p. 61), but erroneousl}'. The 
distinguished conveyancer, N. I. Bovvditch, in his writings upon 
our early history, inclines rather to tlie belief that Colburn's field 
was south of Boj'lston street, and that our Common was the lot of 
land which was assigned to William Blackstone, the original settler 
here, who preceded the Winthrop Colony. 

It seems by a deposition recorded in Suffolk Deeds, xxiv. 406, 
printed in Shaw, p. 50, in Shurtleff's Description of Boston, 
p. 296, and elsewhere, that in 1684 the depositions were taken of four 
of the earliest settlers in Boston then living. They testified that, 
in or about 1634, the town bought of AVilliam Blackstone all his 
right and interest in any lands within the neck of land called Bos- 
ton, excepting about six acres around his dwelling-house. "After 
which purchase the town laid out a place for a training-field, which 
ever since, and now" {i. e. 1684), "is used for that purpose and 
the feeding of cattell." 

* For this compilatioa the Chairman of this Committee is alone responsible. 



Appendix C. '59 

The following vote was passed hy the colonial authorities at a 
court held April 1, 1633, (Colony Records, i. UO) : "It is agreed 
that Mr. William Blackstone shall have 50 acres of ground set out 
for him near to his house in Boston, to enjo^- for ever." 

Now, Mr. Bowditch proved clearl}' that Blackstone's house-lot 
passed to Richard Pepys ; thence, in'l655, to NathanienVilliams ; 
thence to Thomas Banister, in 1709 ; afterwards to John Singleton 
Copley ; and thence is to be traced to the present holders. In the 
deed of 1709 it is described as being on the "lower or north- 
westerly side of Common or Training Field," and bounded south- 
erly thereon. That is to say, it was the corner lot of Beacon and 
Charles street, extending north and west. 

In connection with the deposition of 1684, before cited, there 
can be no reasonable doubt that Mr. Blackstone's fifty acres near 
his house lay to the eastward and not to the west. The town 
bought the lot and laid it out as a common and training-field ; but 
its boundaries and extent were undoubtedly rather loosely defined. 
It was a big lot, almost a farm, comparatively remote from the 
streets and house-lots already laid out, which Avere on the line of 
our present Washington street, and at the North End. 

On March 30, 1039-40, the selectmen passed the following 
order : " Ordered, that henceforth there shall be no land granted 
either for house-lot or garden to any person, out of the open 
ground or common field which is left between the Centry Hill and 
Mr. Colburn's end, except 3 or 4 lots to make up the street from 
Bro. Robt. Walker's to the Round Marsh." 

Centry Hill is Beacon Hill ; William Colburn's " end, " at least 
his house-lot, was the northerly corner of our Washington and 
Boylston streets ; though his field was probably further south, 
beyond the Eliot lots. Robert Walker's house was on the north 
side of Boylston street, and his garden was on the other side. The 
Round Marsh was the one partly encircling old Fox Hill, and so 
out westerl^^ beyond Charles street. 

This first establishment of the Common was in some measure 
different from the present bounds. The town had already granted 
the land on_the north side of Boylston street, which, about A.D. 
1734, was owned by Col. Thomas Fitch, embracing the grave-yard 
lot, and so out easterly to Tremont street. Undoubtedly, also, a 
corner along the shore was part of the then Common, being the 
part southwest of the corner of Boylston and Charles streets. On 
our Tremont street also there was included the land sold in 1811 
for Colonnade Row, reaching to the line of Mason street. The 
line of Beacon street was established quite early. 

Park street, in the form of a lane at least, must date back to 
about 1686, when the Almshouse was built at the upper end, near 
Beacon street. 

As to the uses of the Common, Josselyn (Two Voyages to New 
England), writing under date of 1663, says of Boston : " On the 
South there is a small but pleasant Common, where the Gallants, 
a little before sunset, walk with their Marmalct-Madams as 
we do iuMoorfields, &c., till the nine-a-clock bell rings them home 
to their respective habitations, w^hen presentl}^ the Constables 



60* Appendix C. 

■walk their rounds to see good orders kept, and to take up loose 
people." 

John DnxTON, of London, who was here in 1686 (see his Let- 
ters from New England), copies this description. He also tells 
abont his attending a training in Boston, it being the custom, he 
adds, for all that can bear arms to go ont on a Training Da}-. He 
states that, "being come into the field, the Captain called us all 
into one close order, in order to go topra3'er, and then pra,yed him- 
self; and when our exercise was done, the Captain likewise con- 
cluded with prayer." " Solemn prayer in the field upon a day of 
training, I never knew but in New England, where it seems it is 
a common custom." 

In 1750 Capt. Francis Goelet visited Boston (see journal 
printed in N. E. Hist, and Genealogical Register, xxiv. 55). 
Under date of October 10, he writes, went "to the Commons to 
see the militia drawn up." Again, the next day he went " to the 
Commons to see the training, which consisted of twelve companies 
foot, and three companies horse." 

This matter of a training-field must have been of the greatest 
importance from the earliest time. For the first centur}^ of the 
existence of the settlement, militar}- affairs were the matters of 
dail}- concern. The historj' of New England, during that period, 
is in the highest degree warlike. All citizens were not onh' liable 
to be soldiers, but a large proportion of them actually' served. As 
early as 1674 there were in Boston eight companies, of one hundred 
men each. Here also was the head-quarters of the Ancient and 
Honorable Artillery Company-, then largely' composed of otticers of 
companies out of Boston. 

Thus, in their charter of March 17, 1638-9 (Col. Record, i. 
250-1) , it is stated, " The first Monday in every month is api)oiuted 
for their meeting and exercise ; and to the end that they may not 
be hindered from coming together, we do order that no other train- 
ing in the particular towns, nor other ordinary town meetings, shall 

be appointed on that day This not to extend to 

Salem or the towns beyond, nor to Hingham, Wej-mouth, Dedham, 
nor Concord." The order of course included Roxbnry, Cam- 
bridge, Charlestown, Medford, Watertown, and Lynn, and we find 
that there were, at an early date, members of the conipan}- from 
all these towns. 

The Training-Field, or Common, was thus dedicated not only to 
the militia of Boston, but also to the use of the otticers, at least, 
of many of the neighboring towns. "Jn 1657, the companj' 
authorized their commander for the time being to permit other 
companies to assemble and perform duty in conjunction with tlie 
Artillery Company." (Whitman, Hist.' A. & H. A. Co., p. 447.)* 

The evidence of the constant and continuous use of the whole 
Common as a Training-Field is be^'ond question. 

In 1673 John Turner sells Samuel Shrimpton (SuflE". Deeds, 8, 
f. 329) "land on the waj' leading up from the Training-Field to 
Centry Hill." 

* This exclusive right, says Whitman, was exercised as late as 1808, when Col. 
Holmes cooipolled the Winslow Blues to suspend a drill. 



Appendix C. 61 

One or two citations from Bowditch's notes mn,}' be allowed. 
In 1709, in the deed of Williams to Banister, already cited, the 
bounds sontherly are on the Common or Training-Field. 

In 1714 Thomas Banister sells to Giles Dyer (Deeds, 28, f. 242) 
lands " bounding easterl}' on the Common or Training-Field." 

In 1733 Samuel Banister sells Nathaniel Cunningham (Deeds, 
48, f. 53) land " at the lower or northwesterly side of the Common 
or Training-Field." 

In 179G John Singleton Copley sold to Jonathan INIason and 
Harrison Gray Otis (Deeds, 182, f. 181) lands bounded " southerly 
by a line abutting on the Common or Training-Field." 

The foregoing extracts relate mainly to estates on the Beacon- 
street side. The same evidence is obtainable from the deeds of 
lands on the east and south sides. All the references to the estates 
on the lanes running from our Washington street, viz., Sheaffe's 
lane, now Aver}- street ; Hog alley, near the Adams House, now 
closed ; West street and Frog lane, now Boylston street, describe 
these lanes as running to the " Common or Training-Field." 
Notably this is the case in 1757, when the burying-ground lot was 
bought of Andrew Oliver, and in 1787, when the adjacent lot was 
bought of William Foster. 

Lastl}', whatever doubts ma}- have been felt as to the exact bound- 
aries of the Common, these were practically settled by the laying 
out of Charles street, about 1804, and the erection of fences 
around it. As there had been a sea-wall built before on the line 
of Charles street, the present parade-ground became firm land, 
and thenceforward was for all purposes part of the Common. 

The part west of Charles street was undoubtedl}- marsh-land and 
beach. By concurrence of all authorities, we conclude that on this 
part was situated the old Fox Hill. Windmill Hill, afterwards 
occasionall}- called Fox Hill, is apparently- our Flagstaff Hill, 
southwest of the Frog Pond. In 1723 (see Drake, 569), no per- 
son was to pla}- at " throwing long bullets" on the Common, nor 
to dig sand, earth, or stones at Fox Hill or the Ridge near thereto, 
between that and Windmill Hill in the Common. 

Shurtleff, who has studied the question well, says (p. 346-7) 
that "Fox Hill was not far from the place in the Public Garden as- 
signed for a tower, and which projects into the pond " there. "This 
hill was not very large, being about twenty feet in height and fifty 
feet in diameter, and was almost surrounded b}^ water." " Con- 
nected with Fox Hill was an extensive marsh, . . . which 
covered the space now occupied b}- Charles street and the Public 
Garden, and extended south somewhat beyond the station-house of 
tlie Boston and Providence Railroad." "Old persons have a 
remembrance of it, precipitous and gravelly." 

"Ridge Hill extended in a westerly direction from the present 
Smokers' Circle to the shore of the Back Bay, and terminated in 
an abrupt bluff from ten to twelve feet high. Upon a portion of its 
crest is Ridge Park, leading from West-street gate to the southerly 
corner of Charles street." 

In the map of Boston by Lieut. Page, of the Engineers, dated in 
1775, we see Fox Hill (called also the Island), the marsh and a 



62 Appendix C. 

hill, evidently our Flag-staff Hill. Bat, lie adds a hill westerly of 
the latter, with a fortilication thereon. This maj' not have been 
ver}- high, and may be repiesented by the higher ground towards 
Beacon street, at the west end of the parad>ground. He does not 
show Ridge Hill, but places a fortification at the west corner of the 
bur^-ing-ground, probably on that bluff. Comparing this with the 
plan of Henry Felhani, of the same date, we find on both. Pleasant 
street laid down, curving into Orange, now Washington, street. 
On each there are batteries, west of Pleasant street, on the water- 
side. 

One main difference is, that while both give our present Tremont 
street, as far as Common street. Lane calls this Clough street, and 
draws Hollis street as extending west to the water. Pelliam gives 
no names ; and of course neither represent our present Eliot, Car- 
ver and Warren streets.* 

From Cit}' Document No. IS, of A.D. 1850, we obtain a very 
good account of the disposal of the marsh lands, now the Public 
Garden. 

August 12, 179-1, in a town-meeting the question was considered 
of allowing the owners of the ropewalks destroyed by a fire on 
Pearl street, to rebuild on the marsh. 

In September the report of a committee was accepted, granting 
these rope-makers the marsh and flats, including the whole or such 
part of Fox Hill as fell within the bounds. 

Tliis grant, which was made in consideration of not building on 
Pearl street, was for a strip of land 300 feet wide and in length, 
extending from a line drawn parallel with Beacon street, and 500 
feet from that street. The upper or eastern line was to run from the 
westerly- end of Ridge Hill (being 500 feet from Beacon street), 
"directl}' towards Eliot street as far as the town's land extends 
on the west side of Pleasant street," leaving a " space of fifty feet 
between this line and the end of the rail fence projecting down 
from the burying-ground on the south side of the Common." The 
grantees might \i\vy the lines by relinquishing lift}' feet on the east 
line and taking fifty feet instead on the west side ; or they might 
extend across the marsh diagonally, provided they did not come 
nearer than fifty feet to the end of the burying-ground fence, nor 
cross the line parallel with, and 5C0 feet from. Beacon street. 

The town reserved " sixty feet in width across the souther!}' end 
of said piece of land for a road from Pleasant street down to the 
channel." 

The selectmen " were also authorized to lay out a road sixty feet 
wide from Pleasant street along the easterly side of these lands 
over the marsh towards Beacon street, in order to meet a road that 
might be opened from West Boston Bridge. 

*I desire to call attention to A. Bowen's map, published in Snow's History and 
afterwards in Drake's History. It purports to be a " Plan of Boston in 1722," but it is 
very incorrect. It is not a copy of Bonner's map of that date; it contains many names 
of streets and wharves of a far later date, and is not to be cited as an autiionty. Th(J 
other niap by Bowen, in Snow's History, under date of 1821, gives a much more proba- 
ble water-line. 



Arpendix C. 63 

Thus Charles street was established, and Boylston-street con- 
tinuation was projected.* 

The ropewalk lots were six in number, each lift}' feet wide, and 
when bought back in 1824 the first three lots measured 1,006 feet 
on Charles street, 1,138 feet on the west side. Lots 4, 5, and 6 
measured 1,138 feet each.-j- 

In 180G the ropewalks were burned and rebuilt. In 1824 the 
city bought back all these rights. On the 2Gth July and 27th 
December of that year the town voted on the following 
questions : — 

1. On authorizing the City Council to sell the upland and flats 
west of Charles street. Rejected, 1,027 to 846. 

2. In case the sale was authorized, whether the Common should 
be forever kept open. Agreed to ; 1,111 for, and 737 against. 

3. Whether a settlement should be made with the Boston and 
Roxbury Mill Co. Rejected, 1,404 to 420. 

4. Whether the uplands and flats should be sold south of a line 
from a point on Charles street, opposite the southwest corner of 
the Common (1,350 feet from Beacon street), running at an angle 
of 85° with Charles street, to the bounds of the city flats ; pro- 
vided^ that the Common and all the upland and flats l^'iug west 
therefrom should be kept forever free from buildings. :|: This was 
rejected, 1,404 to 420. 

5. Whether the City Council should be authorized to lay out 
any part of the lands and flats, lying west from the Common, for 
a cemetery. Rejected, 1,632 to 176. 

In 1826 and 1827 the lines were settled between the city and the 
mill company ; the agreement did not prohibit either from building, 
but provided forfeits in that case. 

Ma}' 10, 1830, the order was passed banishing the cows from 
the Common, the price of pasturage having previousl}' been raised 
from two dollars to ten.§ 

In 1842 and 1843 the question of selling the Public Gar- 
den was again agitated, and one result was the publication of those 
opinions of learned counsel on each side, alread}' printed in 
Appendix B. The laud south of Boylston street was sold. 

In 1850 the subject was again considered, and City Document 
No. 18, of that 3'ear, is an elaborate argument in favor of such a 
sale. It concludes, however, with the recommendation that the 
question be submitted to the voters at the next municipal election. 

In December, 1856, the State, the citj-, and the Boston Water 

*In 1843, on the plea that this new Bo3'lston street had never been haid out, the city 
advertised to sell that land, with other land, November 3; but the Uoston &■ Provi- 
dence Railroad Co. obtained an injunction November 1, enjnining the sale of the street, 
and June 23, 1845, the injunction was made perpetual. Charles street is mentioned, ia 
1814, in the act incorporating the Boston and Roxbury Mill Co., but it was hardly a 
travelled street even then. 

tSee Sua. Deeds, lib. 184, f. 142; lib. 290, ff. 193, 4, 5. 

X We understand by this that the secuiid question was about selling the present Pub- 
lic Garden, and the fourth question was about the lands lying south of our Roylston- 
Street extension; and that both were rejected. 

§ Shurtleff, 339. It may be noted that in 1837-9 the Botanic Garden was established 
in the Public Garden, but it was unsuccessful and short-lived. 



64 Appendix C. 

Power Co., made an agreement about the Back Ba}" territory, by 
which Arlington street was hiid out, and a strip of land east of said 
street (28 feet on Boylston street and 155 feet on Beacon street) 
was added to the Public Garden. 

In April, 1851), an act was passed by the Legislature (Chap. 210, 
of that year). It provided that "no building shall hereafter be 
erected between Arlington and Charles streets, except such as are 
expedient for horticultural purposes ; provided, that nothing herein 
contained shall render it unlawful to erect a City Hall on the Pub- 
lic Garden." 

This act was accepted b}- the citizens by a vote of 6,287 to 99. 



The preceding report has given a full account of the later attacks 
upon the Common. It is worthy of notice in all this recital, that 
the citizens have always been strenuous in preserving the Common 
whenever a popular vote has been reached. It is equal!}' apparent 
that there has not alwa^'s been a sufficient appreciation of that 
fact on the part of the members of the City Government, and that 
the popular branch has been more in accord with popular sentiment 
than the aldermen have. 

The greatest danger to the Common has alwa3's consisted in the 
fact that a mistake made by the authorities might be irreparable. 
A mistake in the use of the Common for a single month, an in- 
judicious order as to the care of the trees, might do an injur}^ 
which 3'ears could not repair. It is from no doubt of the capacity 
of the citizens of Boston to govern themselves, that various statutes 
have been passed restraining the authority delegated to the City 
Government. Such enactments will be found to be designed not 
to thwart the will of the people, but simply to insist that the popu- 
lar judgment shall be deliberate, since it may be practicably 
irrevocable. 

W. H. W. 



r HE 



PUBLIC RIGHTS 



BOSTON COMMON, 



B E I N (5 THE 

REPORT OF A COMMITTEE OF CITIZENS. 



1882 



/% 






Of 



BOSTO 

PRESS OF ROCKWELL AND CHURCHILL 

No, 39 ARCH 'street. 

187 7. 



